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I connected my (Dell XPS) laptop through USB-C to a universal docking station, and connected the docking station through USB-C to a Dell charger. As a result, I saw this icon with the message "weak charging state, please check power charger":

enter image description here

I am using Windows 11.

I guess the reason is that the docking station takes some power to itself, so the laptop does not get the ideal amount of power to recharge.

As I still want to use my universal docking station, I would like to know how bad is this "weak charging state" situation. In particular, as my laptop usually needs 130 watt to charge, I would like to know how much lower than that it gets with the docking station (I can live with 120 watt, as I do not do heavy processing on that laptop; but 60 watt would probably be too low).

How can I find out how much wattage my laptop draws from its USB-C port?

DrMoishe Pippik
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Erel Segal-Halevi
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1 Answers1

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There is a handshake between power supply and PC over the USB-C connection to indicate how much power the device being charged can accept, and how much power the charger can provide. For example, the set voltage could be between 5 and 20 volts. If that handshake is not completed correctly, then the charger must limit voltage to the minimum, 5 VDC, lest it fry the connected device. Putting 100 W (20 V at 5 A) into a device expecting 10 W (5 V at 2 A) produces magic smoke.

There's a nice demonstration of a USB-C charger frying components at Hackaday.

You state the PC and supply are connected "through USB-C to a universal docking station...". Obviously, that generic, "universal", docking station cannot pass on that handshake, nor is it necessarily rated to handle the full power, i.e., 20 V at 5 A, for which the laptop could be rated.

DrMoishe Pippik
  • 37,887