I travel a lot. My work takes me to Japan frequently. I only use my Gigabyte P55W V4 for gaming. It has wasted a power supply once, and fried a motherboard twice in two years. Manufacturer's warranty took care of those problems, but now I'm outside the warranty and I'm dealing with what seems to be power supply problems yet again while traveling in Japan.
[the problem]
During gaming, especially with higher graphics requirements like MGS5 and Witcher3, the laptop will switch back and forth between drawing power from the power adapter and the battery. This happens every 5 or so seconds. Sometimes, this behavior is more erratic, or happens with less frequency, like while playing KOTOR 2.
My power profile while plugged in is of course set to maximum across the board, and I've tweaked the battery profile as well to at least keep brightness and fan running at max. Despite my efforts, the laptop continually seems to be asking for more power than can be supplied, thus the switching. It hasn't always done this, only recently while I've been traveling Japan.
[stats during gameplay (using XCOM 2 max graphics because computer simply switched and stayed on battery during Witcher 3 just now...)
Fan - 4295 rpm
Disk - 59%
GPU - 100%
CPU - 29%
Mem - 67%
GPU temp - 76C
CPU temp - 92C (yikes)
[power adapter info]
Delta Electronics - model ADP 150VB B
INPUT - 100-240 V ~ 2.7 A 50-60HZ
OUTPUT - 19.5 V -- 7.7 A
[laptop info]
Processor - Intel Core i7-5700HQ (Intel Core i7)
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M - 3072 MB, Core: 924 MHz, Memory: 5010 MHz, 348.1, Manual switch
[what it might be]
Japan voltage is 100V compared to US voltage at 120V. I don't see how that could contribute to the problem. Eastern Japan is 50 Hz, Western Japan is 60 Hz - again I don't see an issue with that. So I'm ruling out the problem being Japan electricity.
Seeing as how the problem wasn't always there, I'm left to postulate that the problem lies in the power adapter simply going bad. I'm worried that further use will result in a fried motherboard yet again.
[so my questions are...]
My understanding of PSU, power adapters, motherboards, etc.. is sadly lacking. I like to play games in my downtime, not tinker under the hood. I wish I could but I really can't devote that much time outside of my work to it. SO! I'm asking for a little Gaming Laptop for Dummies help here:
Q: Am I on the right track with the power supply being shot?
Q: If so, do I risk destroying another motherboard with a dying power supply?
Q: Should I replace it with the same product, given that this would be the second time this has happened? I mean, do power adapters/PSU die this frequently? Or should I look for something with more Amperage/Watts?
Q: Is it possible I'm doing something to cause this issue that is entirely avoidable in the future?
Q: OR am I stupid and the problem is something else entirely?
Thanks in advance for your help and some information that can possibly help me better understand my expensive, rather irreplaceable little gaming system I take with me everywhere and just want it to work as advertised because ordering repairs while in a different prefecture every day prohibits ordering parts and sorry for the long post cheers!
[the problem]
During gaming, especially with higher graphics requirements like MGS5 and Witcher3, the laptop will switch back and forth between drawing power from the power adapter and the battery. This happens every 5 or so seconds. Sometimes, this behavior is more erratic, or happens with less frequency, like while playing KOTOR 2.
My power profile while plugged in is of course set to maximum across the board, and I've tweaked the battery profile as well to at least keep brightness and fan running at max. Despite my efforts, the laptop continually seems to be asking for more power than can be supplied, thus the switching. It hasn't always done this, only recently while I've been traveling Japan.
[stats during gameplay (using XCOM 2 max graphics because computer simply switched and stayed on battery during Witcher 3 just now...)
Fan - 4295 rpm
Disk - 59%
GPU - 100%
CPU - 29%
Mem - 67%
GPU temp - 76C
CPU temp - 92C (yikes)
[power adapter info]
Delta Electronics - model ADP 150VB B
INPUT - 100-240 V ~ 2.7 A 50-60HZ
OUTPUT - 19.5 V -- 7.7 A
[laptop info]
Processor - Intel Core i7-5700HQ (Intel Core i7)
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M - 3072 MB, Core: 924 MHz, Memory: 5010 MHz, 348.1, Manual switch
[what it might be]
Japan voltage is 100V compared to US voltage at 120V. I don't see how that could contribute to the problem. Eastern Japan is 50 Hz, Western Japan is 60 Hz - again I don't see an issue with that. So I'm ruling out the problem being Japan electricity.
Seeing as how the problem wasn't always there, I'm left to postulate that the problem lies in the power adapter simply going bad. I'm worried that further use will result in a fried motherboard yet again.
[so my questions are...]
My understanding of PSU, power adapters, motherboards, etc.. is sadly lacking. I like to play games in my downtime, not tinker under the hood. I wish I could but I really can't devote that much time outside of my work to it. SO! I'm asking for a little Gaming Laptop for Dummies help here:
Q: Am I on the right track with the power supply being shot?
Q: If so, do I risk destroying another motherboard with a dying power supply?
Q: Should I replace it with the same product, given that this would be the second time this has happened? I mean, do power adapters/PSU die this frequently? Or should I look for something with more Amperage/Watts?
Q: Is it possible I'm doing something to cause this issue that is entirely avoidable in the future?
Q: OR am I stupid and the problem is something else entirely?
Thanks in advance for your help and some information that can possibly help me better understand my expensive, rather irreplaceable little gaming system I take with me everywhere and just want it to work as advertised because ordering repairs while in a different prefecture every day prohibits ordering parts and sorry for the long post cheers!
Facebook
Twitter