question about powering a laptop

[bonestonne]

ok, maybe i'm stupid, or crazy, but someone please give me a very good answer.

i've got a Thinkpad 2648-T22, 900Mhz, 384Mb of RAM [take what i can get]

i'm getting an original power adapter for it, however my dad [who's cant let anything wait] ghetto-fied a power supply for it, and i want to know if i'm right about what i know of it.

if you have a 12 volt [overload protected] power supply that [puts out 4 amps], it wont be able to power a 16v item requiring 3.36amps. i doubt the extra amps do anything for it...

i'm well aware of line-loss and how shorter wires in general are better, but even with a shorter cable, 12v and 4a will not be able to adequately supply 16v and 3.36a.

is there anyone who could make some sense out of that?

[cyprod]

It's hard to say actually. If it truely needs the full 3.36 amps, then no, the 12 volts at 4 amps will not work. Max power required is 53.76 watts and max power supplied is 48 watts. Now if it can live on less power and the power electronics inside the laptop are up to scratch, it might be able to live with 12 volts, especially as most computer electronics require less than 12 volts anyway so it'll be using a buck circuit of some kind no matter what. The problem I see is just not being able to pull the power required out of the power supply and burning the powersupply out, which could cause a short of some kind and fry your laptop, or, the power electronics inside the laptop suck and it truely does need 16 volts. Probably best not to risk it in any case.