Jump to content

[Tutorial] Dual 330W AC Adapter Mod


Guest

Recommended Posts

That looks very professional!

At the moment it seems to still be working. 

Also I am still using my rectifier so it seems like the whole problem was the cables. Today I will try isolate the cables inside my adapter, screw everything together, close it up and call it finished.

 

I am excited to try reinstall windows 10 again.

I am pretty sure it will work with the mod.

 

Also I have start making some driver comparison, because I saw a video with Linudtechtips were the tested many drivers to see if Nvidia cripples their GPUs. Their conclusion is no. But they only tested desktop GPU.

Laptop GPUs get crippled like hell by Nvidia!!! I already tried the latest driver from Nvidia and compared to 388. It drops around 10 FPS in SLI, and with a single card it drops 20 FPS because it starts throttling. 388 and 383 modified runs flawlessly!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe, I am no so sure, because of high Amperage, your solder can get hot and not playing nice. Selecting a higher temperature solder (and possibly a higher wattage solder iron) will help. Make thicker connections and use shrink wrap to secure it. 

 

I wanted to avoid too many soldering for that reason. I saw that the signal cables were not soldered on mine, only screw tightened lol

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is the final result, I used the same colour as my car, a metallic blood red.

 

What could be very cool would give it some sort of coating which changes colour as it gets hotter.

:D

 

But first I need to test it for the long gaming sessions.

IMG_20180630_185647.jpg

IMG_20180630_185914.jpg

IMG_20180630_190114.jpg

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And now, out of nowhere the problem is back. I just disconnected everything to move it to a different table so I could clean everything. When finished I turned everything on and boom! Not working!!!

I think I just give up...

 

To troubleshoot what can be the problem will probably cost too much money and effort.

 

It can be the rectifier, it can be the inputs, it can be the cables, it can be one of the PSUs or it could be both, it can be the motherboard.

 

The only thing that would be nice, is if someone could make a very cheap adapter, that is tested and working 100% and let me borrow it to see if it is just my build that is the problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm... I noticed, when there is no problem, when I turn on the alienware it first pulls 200 watt then it go down to 118 watt until it is finished booting up. Then it settles at 147 watt.

 

When the problem is there I can already see it when I turn it on, because under the whole boot season it pull 80 watt and when finished it settles at 105 watt.

 

What the hell can be causing this strange behaviour?

 

Because now after one night without using it. It is now working again???

Edited by Henrik9979
  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, jerryzago said:

I am not sure what drivers I am using but all my games seems stable. 

Here is a picture with some load on the pc. 

 

During power ups, I see loads at 110max. How do you measure load? 

IMG_20171220_052518.jpg

I measure loads directly from the wall. What country do you come from?

 

By the way, my latest theory seems to be right.

It seems to starte working after sitting all night with no power.

I was wondering why?

When it had no power connected, I could still measure some few volt.

I got the theory that maybe the PSUs needs to be drained completely.

After letting it sit for 6 hours I could measure 20mv. I tried turning everything one and the problem was still there. Now I tried letting it sit for 8 hours. Then it was measuring 1mv. I tried power it back on and voilà it was working.

 

The next thing I will try is to only let one PSU drain. Maybe I am able to be located the sick PSU after all.

 

By the way I measured the volt coming out of the dual adaptor. When disconnecting both PSU I measure 0mv. So no power is stuck in the adaptor. Only the PSUs.

Edited by Henrik9979
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm... I start thinking it might be my wattmeter that is showing wrong or cause the problems.

 

The order everything is connected is Wall to Wattmeter to Power strip to PSUs to Adapter to Computer.

I tried different things to provoke the problem.

 

No matter which combination I disconnected and reconnected the PSUs from the power strip, I could not provoke the problem. Even restarting the computer did not do anything.

 

The last thing I tried was turning the switch off on the wall and turning I back on. This made the problem come back?

This is very strange???

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay now I am getting somewhere. Yesterday I forced the problem to come back.

Before I went to bed, I toke out the wattmeter from the wall leaving it on the table and connected the power strip directly to the wall, leaving the power on for the PSUs.

This morning I switched off the power, toke the power strip out of the wall, plug in the wattmeter connected the power strip, switched the power back on a voilà it was working again.

 

Now I am pretty sure the whole issue is the wattmeter!!!

What I need to test now, is if the wattmeter is showing wrong values, or if it is causing a bottleneck.

I tested it on my clothes dryer and I shows 4.000 watt. So it can indeed show large values.

 

But it is still very strange behaviour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I live in Greece. I used once the Wemo smart wireless wattage meter. It showed me on a single Psu a maximum of 360watts. I don't have it anymore, since it was a part of a project and I had to give it. I could monitor wattage via app and store data. 

 

Anyhow, those things tend to show wrong values. Also keep in mind that if the device needs from the wall 360watts, and estimate an efficiency of 80% due to components and heat, then you have less that 300watts for your device. Just numbers.... 

 

If your bridge gets too hot, than also means a large amount of power is not getting to the laptop. Also in order to have the bridge operational, a small amount of voltage is reguired too. 

 

Diodes instead of bridges, don't heat up, and have a small Forward Voltage (voltage needed to operate). 

 

Psus due to their internal transformers keep some power stored, that is why you read voltage even though you have disconnected it from the mains. It is a normal situation so I don't think that this is the problem also. 

 

I installed this display to see what exactly is going on. It is wired after the diodes so it measures voltage, Amperage and wattage that the laptop receives, regardless the efficiency. 

 

I have read all your posts, and I also think it is weird to have this behavior. I told you that I had the same problems, until I removed the rectifier and placed diodes. Simpler and easier method. Also, no heat!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Diodes allow current in one direction only. 

 

+      +

 D   D

    Y

    +

 

You connect one diode to each positive current of your psu, and the other end of the diodes together. You create a Y section. So current from both psus flow towards your laptop and not either way back. You could place on the negative side, but it is not needed. You can see the Y section in my pictures above, is is cover in black tape. 

 

Hope it is understandable. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, jerryzago said:

Diodes allow current in one direction only. 

 

+      +

 D   D

    Y

    +

 

You connect one diode to each positive current of your psu, and the other end of the diodes together. You create a Y section. So current from both psus flow towards your laptop and not either way back. You could place on the negative side, but it is not needed. You can see the Y section in my pictures above, is is cover in black tape. 

 

Hope it is understandable. 

Very understandable.

It seems like it is the wattmeter because it doesn't matter if it say 330 watt or 660 watt the performance is the same.

But I see now that 2x 330watt is still not enough if I want to overclocke while running SLI.

With both gtx 980m at stuck I can maximum overclock the CPU to 4.4 ghz. Even there it sometimes pulls 700 watt.

If I overclock it to 4.9 ghz the gaming performance drops in SLI because it reaches 800 watt in no time.

Overclock both gtx 980m is a

no-go I can sometimes keep it around 660 watt if the CPU only is clock to 4.0 ghz

 

Actually when running single gtx 980m I can have 4.6 ghz on the CPU and +181mhz core, +469mhz memory and +56mv on the GPU and it will pull almost 600 watt!

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

hi to all!
I have new Dell PSU 330W DA330PM1111 Y90RR + adapter with 7.4x5.0mm to 5.5x2.5mm
I bought it for a laptop CLEVO P150EM (SAGER NP9150)
I understand that because of the built-in chip Dell and ID line, my PSU will work at 240 watts maximum (without modifications)?

Please, tell me how to modify it so that it works for 330W?
I will be very grateful to you!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 21/7/2018 at 2:42 PM, jerryzago said:

So how it goes? The watt meter was causing all the trouble? 

Yes it was only showing the half of the powerdraw but the performance was correct. I just realized when overclocking 2 gtx 980m and the CPU, two PSU is not enough.

On 22/7/2018 at 12:47 AM, userOK said:

hi to all!
I have new Dell PSU 330W DA330PM1111 Y90RR + adapter with 7.4x5.0mm to 5.5x2.5mm
I bought it for a laptop CLEVO P150EM (SAGER NP9150)
I understand that because of the built-in chip Dell and ID line, my PSU will work at 240 watts maximum (without modifications)?

Please, tell me how to modify it so that it works for 330W?
I will be very grateful to you!

Mr.fox described similar issue somewhere. I believe the solution was to connect the ID cable to the negative (black) cable. 

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I made a small experiment. I connected the Y90RR PSU together with my two XM3C3 PSU'S to get 990 watt.

But it seems like the Y90RR do not work together with XM3C or just don't like multi-psu-mods.

Anyway it will only deliver 90 watt max. When connected alone it can deliver 330 watt.

 

It would be nice if someone can confirm that 3x XM3C3 PSU's can deliver 990 watt. Because 2x gtx 980m and a i7 2960xm can pull way more than 660 watt.

 

Even though hwinfo64 measures like this:

Gtx 980m 140 watt

Gtx 980m 140 watt

CPU           100 watt

 

If I overclock the CPU to 4.9 ghz and keeps the GPU at stock it pulls 810 watt.

If I want to keep the watt at 660 watt I need to set the CPU to 3.2 ghz.

So if you have a i7 QM CPU and gtx 980m SLI you will not gain anything in games by upgrading to a XM or K CPU.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

This might actually be interesting to remedy my current issue.

My m18xr1 isn't working correctly because it keeps asking for a 330w adapter (the one is came with). Currently I have 2 240w and 1 180w adapater that I could use for a mod like this.

If I used both 240w, do you think this would fix the issue?

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, epa.caguei said:

This might actually be interesting to remedy my current issue.

My m18xr1 isn't working correctly because it keeps asking for a 330w adapter (the one is came with). Currently I have 2 240w and 1 180w adapater that I could use for a mod like this.

If I used both 240w, do you think this would fix the issue?

 

Thanks!

No it will still ask for 330w PSU.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dell uses the center pin to identify which adapter is hooked up and without the pin or with a defective one it will throttle down. There's a great guide with all the nitty-gritty here:

Hacking the Dell laptop power adapter

 

See 1-Wire on wikipedia for the protocol information (has a snippet on Apple and Dell laptop adapters). Mr. Fox used original 330W adapters and hooked up both of their ID pins to the joined laptop plug, so his mod doesn't have that issue (though he really only needed to hook up one wire). Turns out only the wattage is important and if those 240Ws are Dell models then you might program one of these to 330W instead. Easier might be to score the ID chip from a defective or spare 330W model, but chances to find one would be pretty slim. For both you'd preferably relocate the chip near the DC jack on motherboard instead; that way all adapters will report 330W and the flimsy center pin would become permanently redundant.

 

Have a few 240W Dells as well and don't need them to run Dell systems. I should have sufficient tools to program that chip, so if you like I could make one of them a 330W version. Send a pm if you're interested.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sure, np.

 

Btw, bit late, but @userOK :

Clevo systems don't use center pins or any type of adapter whitelisting. Every adapter you hook up will run to its maximum rated draw, so that 330W will do fine without any modification. It's a one-way restriction; the ID chip is read out by the Dell or Apple laptop and, if the ID fails, those systems and only those systems will limit their cpu/gpu to a trickle draw, but it won't throttle the adapter and the adapter won't throttle itself, either.

 

It is a really stupid design, if you take it at face value. Consider a 'smart' faucet that pings the water utility's systems to check whether they're operating at full capacity and then turns itself off simply because there's no reply. You'd have no drinking water because the faulty ID check means it won't let you open the tap.

 

Now, let's say you take a 19V/50W adapter to run a 330W system without an ID-check feature; it'd be perfectly fine! Yes, it'd throttle due to power starvation and that measly adapter will heat up quite a bit, but it won't blow up and neither will the system. The adapter because it is designed to cope with excess loads and the laptop simply because it can't blow up due to lack of juice.

 

Really, the Apple/Dell motive here is to hinder the suppliers of aftermarket adapters and promote sale of 'genuine' replacements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, H658tu said:

Sure, np.

 

Btw, bit late, but @userOK :

Clevo systems don't use center pins or any type of adapter whitelisting. Every adapter you hook up will run to its maximum rated draw, so that 330W will do fine without any modification. It's a one-way restriction; the ID chip is read out by the Dell or Apple laptop and, if the ID fails, those systems and only those systems will limit their cpu/gpu to a trickle draw, but it won't throttle the adapter and the adapter won't throttle itself, either.

 

It is a really stupid design, if you take it at face value. Consider a 'smart' faucet that pings the water utility's systems to check whether they're operating at full capacity and then turns itself off simply because there's no reply. You'd have no drinking water because the faulty ID check means it won't let you open the tap.

 

Now, let's say you take a 19V/50W adapter to run a 330W system without an ID-check feature; it'd be perfectly fine! Yes, it'd throttle due to power starvation and that measly adapter will heat up quite a bit, but it won't blow up and neither will the system. The adapter because it is designed to cope with excess loads and the laptop simply because it can't blow up due to lack of juice.

 

Really, the Apple/Dell motive here is to hinder the suppliers of aftermarket adapters and promote sale of 'genuine' replacements.

The only thing good about the Dell systems is, it is very hard to do a power short. The hole thing, both the laptop and PSU will shutdown fast! When I was making the dual PSU mod I made some mistakes resulting in big sparks! But nothing was damaged, Even the alienwaren did not take damage.

 

Clevo on the other hand. I had a p170em and a friend borrowed it to watch YouTube while I was working on something else. The battery came down to 10% and he panicked and ran for the charger. In his rush I managed to connect the PSU UP-AND-DOWN to my clevo, resulting in + and - to be switched around, killing the motherboard instantly! 

I was pretty pissed at him! But also for clevo not making it idiot proof.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...
  • 1 year later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.