Railfan Technology > Proprietary laptop power supplies.

One of the members of our amateur radio club who knows his way around computers
reports his Dell laptop does "weird stuff" if he uses a generic laptop power
supply. (of more than sufficient capacity) He states it will not charge the
battery, runs slowly and has a popup on the screen mentioning there is not
a genuine Dell power supply connected. When a genuine Dell laptop supply
is attached, all is well.

This removed Dell from my possible list of brands to purchase.

Aside from the recent Lenovo "call home" garbage, are there other manufacturers
(besides Apple, whose middle name is proprietary) doing this kind of thing?

Be Well,

Tim Colbert K3HX

Running Linux.

Hello Tim.

Sorry to say but I believe that a lot of companies are doing that these days. Printers are configured to know if you are using their products or an off brand or a refill cartridge. I found that in my last two printers. It's just a way to ensure forced brand loyalty. I suspect most of the major manufacturer are doing it. If you go to some off brand system you might get around it but if you have problems with the system a year later, who you going to get to fix it?

73's
John

Hi Tim, I had to give up and I have all Apple products now. A couple years ago I had two new lap tops
and lost them both to viruses. I have had one Apple since 2005 and one since 2009 with no problems.
.......Swede...NA7SL......Albany,Or.
PS I have even ran Airmail on one of them...SL

Thanks for posting this.

http://www.laptop-junction.com/toast/content/inside-dell-ac-power-adapter-mystery-revealed

I deduced from the above link that Dell might have started doing this way back in 2005, since the model mentioned in the article is the D610, which was released that year. I have a newer model made in 2007 (bought secondhand, so paid 1/3 the original cost), and can verify that the center pin antenna-type connector mentioned is in the power plug. It looks too small to safely carry amperage large enough to power/recharge the laptop, so it probably connects to the "UniqueWare™ Add-Only Memory" to tell the BIOS whether the power supply is "genuine" or not.

Talk about a design driven by greed and pettiness! I would have been more forgiving, had a circuitry been designed to actually monitor voltage and current levels to determine whether the power supply was working within design tolerances.

Apple was mentioned above as an alternative, but remember, the company has a long history of intellectual property pettiness, even though I think their products are very good. I'm surprised they weren't the first ones to implement something like this. So let's refrain from "taking sides" regarding brand loyalty. I agree with wa4umr that this is a disturbing trend in the high tech industry.

Off topic, but now that Dell is no longer a public company and can avoid dumb shareholder scrutiny, they can save production costs on the power supply by removing the "UniqueWare™ Add-Only Memory" feature. No more proprietary connector either.

And not just laptops.

My wife has an Alcatel cellphone, I have a LG. Both use USB2 Micro-B connectors for charging and communication. However, neither will charge when using the others charger. Both will display an error message about the charger.

I have a Garmin GPS which uses a USB2 Micro-B connector. To Garmin's credit, their GPS unit functions and charges with any adapter, Garmin's, Alcatel's, LG's, even Apple's USB brick.

Yes, a charger conspiracy! When we travel with our plethora of electronic doo-dads (don't forget digital cameras), we need an extra suitcase just for the chargers and plug strips!!

73s

daniel

I have an Apple I-phone and I bought an extra USB charging cord for it. It worked for about a week and then I started getting messages that it was "Not a genuine Apple product" and I couldn't use it anymore. Maybe they have something that will let you recharge with someone Else's charger and cord a few times but expects you to use the genuine stuff after a while.

John

wa4umr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have an Apple I-phone and I bought an extra USB
> charging cord for it. It worked for about a week
> and then I started getting messages that it was
> "Not a genuine Apple product" and I couldn't use
> it anymore. Maybe they have something that will
> let you recharge with someone Else's charger and
> cord a few times but expects you to use the
> genuine stuff after a while.
>
> John

The newer iPhones can tell if the usb cord is not usb 2.0. I had that problem with a usb extender i was using. Got a 2.0 extender (not Apple) and the problem went away.

Dell has always been as propiatary as Apple..

Scott Schifer
Torrance, CA
TinyTrains Website

Unfortunately, practically everything seems to be proprietary.
About eight years ago, my son's Epson printer quit working. 
He gave me a supply of off-brand ink cartridges that he had purchased since my printer was like the one he had.
I tried using the cartridges in my printer and it promptly died.
The cartridges obviouslly caused the printers to stop working.
ALLEN

I had the same problem with my HP all-in-one printer.  Stuck in an aftermarket ink cartridge, up comes "Not a genuine HP cartridge.  Please replace with genuine HP cartridges".

Just as an aside, if your device's proprietary battery dies and you can't find a replacement, Radio Shack may be able to rebuild it.  I did this with a portable DVD player - cost me <$50 CAN and now the battery lasts four-and-a-half hours instead of the original two.