I have the Framework 16 with the AMD Graphics card, meaning I need the 240w power supply for it.
I currently have a Plugable Thunderbolt dock that provides 96w power. It works well, but the laptop notes the power provided isn’t enough for full use.
Can I plug both the Dock (with Power Delivery) and the FW Charger in at the same time, or will that cause an issue?
Hi.
There might be bugs, but here is how I understand it is supposed to work. I am another user like you.
The laptop will only draw power from one input.
The laptop will choose/prefer the input that offers the most power using the USB PD 3 protocol.
The USB PD protocol is quite complex, so should be able to do this, but because it is so complex, it might have bugs and not work as expected.
So, based on that, plug both the dock and the 240W power adapter in, and it should select the 240W power adapter for its power.
Plugging both in at the same time is not likely to cause any damage.
I do this with mine and it works fine. It will charge off the 240w while connected to the dock.
In fact, mine will refuse charge from my dock (100w) completely once I have connected that 240w one time…. Until I reboot the machine. You may need to do the battery disconnect trick to get it to charge from the dock again after using the 240w at the same time. Just something to be aware of.
The 180W charger is very potent for powering the device, just at everything maxed out it may start to draw the battery down.
Unless gaming where the processor and graphics are running full tilt; there are not a lot of scenarios where it will pull 240W over a sustained period of time. (Some select science computation work too)
Now if the 180w charger is not in the picture at all then the best choice would be to use the 240w one now that it is available.
Yes. I ran my FW16 as a desktop with the charger and a 100W PD dock. The laptop correctly detected the better power source and started drawing from it, leaving the dock’s power output idling. One good way to visualize it is to plug the charger and dock in on opposite sides. The charging LED will only glow on the side it’s drawing power from. The PD firmware on the FW16 is very robust.