The deeper I dig into HP's designs, the more I realize how amazing they are.

- Let's put 18.5V on our charger label
- Let's make it actually put out 20V, just because 🤪
(Note: this is a SMPS, not one of those old linear ones where that's normal)
- Let's make our charger output positive on not only 1 line, but also a second smaller one, just because. All the while the thicker line is more than capable enough, and the same size as the negative line.
(So essentially there's 2 positives, one negative)
- Fuck conventional wiring colors (red for positive, black for negative). Let's awaken our 'murican patriotism and make positive black, and negative white.
- Oh those are the colors for American AC lines and not DC lines? I had no idea! But look, I have a shiny piece of paper and you don't so your concern is invalid!

I lost more brain cells from these realizations than I would from a whole night of binge drinking. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU HP?!!

HP was good 15 years ago now everything they make is garbage

I had to recently replace a HP motherboard because the connector was broken and something was fried on the mobo. What a great design.

++'d just to flex on them people who put shit ventilation in my dad's laptop. Throttling? No, let's just have it shut down because we can't manage to keep it under 80°C for more than a minute under full load

@Conrad oh, I've actually had that in one of my laptops as well.. which coincidentally was also an HP! What's more, when I just took out the motherboard and ran it out of its enclosure, the temperature remained consistently under 60°C. At some point I'll probably just build a custom enclosure for it that actually does a decent job at dissipating heat. To do right what HP did wrong 😒

That’s so funny, I was literally thinking “wait Black and White is a standard for household wiring” and then, duh, it’s only for AC. Just be glad you’re not dealing with wiring in a US home! Building codes change a little by location too. I’ve seen red and green for hot and neutral respectively. It’s all kinds of confusing.

Ever tried finding drivers for making images for mass deployment? Same product model build spec has multiple devices from vastly different manufacturers. Looking up the device using the serialnumber does not give you the exact specs, only the possible specs... gaah!! And dont get me started on the bloat invluded in drivers....

Switching supplies are supposed to output more if you dont measure them under load. The main regulators are on the mobo and they give you stability. The main one is supposed to just give enough juice.

@Gregozor2121 I didn't know that! I'd assumed that they'd be a regulated CV supply. But I'll be sure to do some probing under load later on!

@Gregozor2121 nice, didn't know that.

@Condor my Razer blade dies that too.
Habe heard that they go up to 23V when officially rated for 19v

All the VRMs inside can take up to 25V I think.

@Condor And you call yourself a electronic enginieer?! 😐

It is very difficult to stabilise those switching converters near their extremes. Especialy because transistors need time to turn on and off and couple that with the fact that without any load on the output even small duty cycle will create huge voltage and you got yourself a problem that milions of EE enginieers are trying to solve...
(without mentioning loop stability in multiple freq ranges, varying demand, emi, cost, blah, blah)

Those supplies are usualy made very crudely as well. Most of the time they use of the shelf IC as a controler (good because they are stable and relaible) and single mosfet with a typical SMPS transformator.

Yes those voltages can be misleading that is why i think they should mention max voltage not the typical one. But sometimes mobo enginieers can fuck up as well that is why im always scared of using non original power bricks for my lap...
because someties it can cause heating issiues or damage

@Gregozor2121 that regulation depending on load is the responsibility of feedback circuitry though? I'd assume every SMPS to have one of those. Especially when it goes into dynamic loads like a laptop. Seems a bad design on HP's end if they kept it unregulated.

Their printers now sends a software update to brick the device when you used like 2+ years

@CozyPlanes that's criminal

@electrineer seriously one broke bcuz of this
Shit hp

Oh and if you actually run it at 18v the motherboard shits itself and forces all cores to run at 300mhz. Quick fuck about in the bios and that sensor no longer works and it runs fine on my portable charger