yup, GAN would give them about 2% extra efficiency but cost them in reliability. Machines are not yet where they would want to push so much though them. They started small and weak, to give themselves time to fix issues. current highest brick I've seen as GAN was 220W. IMHO, limit is around 600W. (at least if they dont want to deal with a lot of RMA's)Reply
I've had two Anker 100w USB-C chargers fail. The second one provided as a replacement under warranty technically still works but only charges at 65w. The first one, an identical model, charged at 90w, killing itself after a month. It also gets hot, a byproduct of its tiny size. But it even gets pretty warm when charging a Nintendo Switch - a device that only draws 20w. That's kind of concerning for a charger rated for 5x that capacity.
Regardless of how efficient GaN chargers are, they seem to be built too small for their own good, or with poor thermal management. Considering there are many reviews of people like myself with nearly identical experience I'm pretty sure the plethora of 5-star reviews are bought\fake.Reply
Power bricks for laptops will, of course, not be putting out 1600W, or even close to that.
As someone who's been studying EE, GaN has a few drawbacks.
First, they have a negative temperature coefficient. This means that as they heat up they conduct electricity more easily. This would seem like a good thing, until you realize that we don't want the atoms inside of the MOSFET to suddenly conduct way to much current in one spot leading to macroscopic thermal runaway.
Second, GaN MOSFETs have an odd resonance property that makes them difficult to work with. What I mean is that you switch them on and they swing on fast, then suddenly off again, then on again in a sinusoidal wave like fashion. (I'd explain this better, but I'm not done studying.)
This means that they're harder to design for and some of the test & measurement equipment you'd use for normal PSUs won't work with GaN MOSFETs. New T&M equipment, of course, costs an arm and a leg.
Now although there are no more problems with GaN MOSFETs themselves, manufacturers typically prefer not to have to give warranties. For example, in the case of MBs, you'll notice the lack of electrolytic caps -- even to this day and with genuine brands -- since the original problem that the industry had years ago with leaking capacitors.
Likewise, for example, your wall oven probably uses relays, not MOSFETs, IGBTs, or power transistors, to switch the elements on. This is true even with the modern internet connected models that I have observed.Reply
That is very interesting stuff. Now that you mention it, I have seen a poorly made GaN charger go into thermal runaway. It ran at its 65W rating when cool, but then slowly started creeping upwards of 70W when it got scorching hot. It subsequently failed when something cooked inside of it. I think it was probably a capacitor, judging by the circular bulge.Reply
Unfortunately with the death of LGA / MXM based DTRs from Clevo corp. This is pretty much only useful for their last P870DM line and the other one with the 10th gen X170SM. X170KM has no unlocked BIOS so it's pretty much useless and 11th gen is a dud.
All the other OEMs make BGA computers which barely last 2-3 years. I use an Alienware from Haswell era (2014 - 2024, that's 10 years of lifespan and still running) with an rPGA socket and an MXM slot with Delta 330W Dell PSU and I have faced 3 GPU failures and got a replacement off market and ebay. Now I have a choice to get the P5000 MXM GPU or P5200 all standard 3.0b MXM standard, PnP. Which is identical to a 1080 GPU with 16GB of VRAM.
Ultimately nice review but a bit late. As enthusiasts who would buy this moved on from the Clevo and now use a Desktop as LGA DTR is dead. MXM was alive until Maxwell, but later on Clevo, MSI slowly started making mutated MXM3.0 cards which are unusual design and finally with RTX series Turing they all died off. Alienware Area 51 R1 and R2 which used 9th gen were massive failures due to GPU fires and what not, I think they had to use 2x 330W PSUs and this Eurocom 780W won't work. Reply
For those who are curious on these DTRs and forum aspects and want to increase their life and service, they should have known NBR but it was shutdown, a replacement by community was created called notebooktalk, go over there and see how the older non BGA machines still thrive despite their EOL status.Reply
There’s probably a way to adapt a type-c connector already though that makes little sense. Since such a physically small connector is limited to a fraction of the power draw this is intended to provide. Not to mention it’s just one 20 volt rail.Reply
That's a 1U server PSU with a different connector and a display panel. Nice to see exploitation of simpletons is ongoing in the PC industry and revolves mostly around playing video games as always.Reply
haha spot on, i thought something looked familiar here, and you can get those used or even new for significantly less. nice scam from eurocommunism.Reply
You know your target audience is ripe for exploitation when you can get away with charging them $130 for the wire between the PSU and their laptop.Reply
Not a fair price at all. A very easy, low bar to meet, would be whether I can acquire the components (in a mere build quantity of ONE) and build it myself cheaper, which I can easily do. This is not true for practically everything else in the tech and power engineering sector that I can think of.
Extending that further, I could make them in far lower quantity than Eurocom, and sell for a profit for less than theirs cost - except I am not interested in that business.
There are two ways of looking at fair market value. One is your way of having a captive audience and stating it is custom - but that is what they decided(!), and the other is what is reasonable markup for a BOM without alienating customers. I think we often see consumers complaining when the price of parts becomes excessive for things we own, and ultimately, directly contributes towards things ending up in a landfill.Reply
There is a magic spell called "economy of scale". When something is being mass produced, it is far less expensive than something with a low, specialized production. This is true for everything, from single screws to aircraft. And the reason why some parts are much less expensive than their very similar counterparts. Take car tyres as an example, check any "popular" dimension and then every dimension near it, chances are they'll be 25-50% more expensive for a difference of a few millimeters. Similarly, a tiny special screw usually costs three times as much as an M8 bolt. That's how things work, no matter how easy they might seem on paper.Reply
I don't think the Ecodesign 2019/1782 directive applies to this unit.
Article 1 ("Subject matter and scope") states that the directive applies to external power supplies.
Then in article 2 which makes definitions for the purpose of the directive, 'external power supply' is (among other things) defined to have output power not exceeding 250 watts.
I suppose it's reasonable that power bricks exceeding 250W are not considered consumer grade, therefore not appropriate to regulate together with consumer electric equipment.Reply
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meacupla - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
I'm surprised they still use MOSFET, when GaN has been around for a while now. ReplyGC2:CS - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
Yea. I did notice that GaN is all over the cheap compact adapters for 20 bucks featuring way smaller overall size than older ones.But the big, premium and powerfull stuff ? Good old silicon.
Pretty a shame considering how much investment went into GaN.
Does anybody have an explanation for that ? What is the other side of GaN ? Reply
shing3232 - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
if size is non-issue, then there is not much reason to use GaN Replymeacupla - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
But it's a laptop charger, so size is a consideration.GaN also has better efficiency, usually in the >95% range. Reply
deil - Tuesday, April 23, 2024 - link
yup, GAN would give them about 2% extra efficiency but cost them in reliability. Machines are not yet where they would want to push so much though them. They started small and weak, to give themselves time to fix issues.current highest brick I've seen as GAN was 220W. IMHO, limit is around 600W. (at least if they dont want to deal with a lot of RMA's) Reply
Samus - Friday, April 26, 2024 - link
I've had two Anker 100w USB-C chargers fail. The second one provided as a replacement under warranty technically still works but only charges at 65w. The first one, an identical model, charged at 90w, killing itself after a month. It also gets hot, a byproduct of its tiny size. But it even gets pretty warm when charging a Nintendo Switch - a device that only draws 20w. That's kind of concerning for a charger rated for 5x that capacity.Regardless of how efficient GaN chargers are, they seem to be built too small for their own good, or with poor thermal management. Considering there are many reviews of people like myself with nearly identical experience I'm pretty sure the plethora of 5-star reviews are bought\fake. Reply
meacupla - Monday, April 29, 2024 - link
IDK which Anker model was that problematic, but in my experience a vast majority of compact GaN chargers work fine at max output for >1hr.For >100W I suggest, in no particular order
Pepper jobs 165W, Chipofy 170W, yoocas 140W Reply
ballsystemlord - Saturday, April 27, 2024 - link
If you want a GaN PSU, look no farther than https://rog.asus.com/power-supply-units/rog-thor/r...Power bricks for laptops will, of course, not be putting out 1600W, or even close to that.
As someone who's been studying EE, GaN has a few drawbacks.
First, they have a negative temperature coefficient. This means that as they heat up they conduct electricity more easily. This would seem like a good thing, until you realize that we don't want the atoms inside of the MOSFET to suddenly conduct way to much current in one spot leading to macroscopic thermal runaway.
Second, GaN MOSFETs have an odd resonance property that makes them difficult to work with. What I mean is that you switch them on and they swing on fast, then suddenly off again, then on again in a sinusoidal wave like fashion. (I'd explain this better, but I'm not done studying.)
This means that they're harder to design for and some of the test & measurement equipment you'd use for normal PSUs won't work with GaN MOSFETs. New T&M equipment, of course, costs an arm and a leg.
Now although there are no more problems with GaN MOSFETs themselves, manufacturers typically prefer not to have to give warranties. For example, in the case of MBs, you'll notice the lack of electrolytic caps -- even to this day and with genuine brands -- since the original problem that the industry had years ago with leaking capacitors.
Likewise, for example, your wall oven probably uses relays, not MOSFETs, IGBTs, or power transistors, to switch the elements on. This is true even with the modern internet connected models that I have observed. Reply
meacupla - Monday, April 29, 2024 - link
That is very interesting stuff.Now that you mention it, I have seen a poorly made GaN charger go into thermal runaway.
It ran at its 65W rating when cool, but then slowly started creeping upwards of 70W when it got scorching hot. It subsequently failed when something cooked inside of it. I think it was probably a capacitor, judging by the circular bulge. Reply
ballsystemlord - Tuesday, April 30, 2024 - link
Their low on-resistance would place a greater thermal burden on the capacitors. Cheap caps don't really have low-ESR, so they'd overheat easily.Your post really brings to mind the effect that GaN has on the whole system's design. Reply
Silver5urfer - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
Unfortunately with the death of LGA / MXM based DTRs from Clevo corp. This is pretty much only useful for their last P870DM line and the other one with the 10th gen X170SM. X170KM has no unlocked BIOS so it's pretty much useless and 11th gen is a dud.All the other OEMs make BGA computers which barely last 2-3 years. I use an Alienware from Haswell era (2014 - 2024, that's 10 years of lifespan and still running) with an rPGA socket and an MXM slot with Delta 330W Dell PSU and I have faced 3 GPU failures and got a replacement off market and ebay. Now I have a choice to get the P5000 MXM GPU or P5200 all standard 3.0b MXM standard, PnP. Which is identical to a 1080 GPU with 16GB of VRAM.
Ultimately nice review but a bit late. As enthusiasts who would buy this moved on from the Clevo and now use a Desktop as LGA DTR is dead. MXM was alive until Maxwell, but later on Clevo, MSI slowly started making mutated MXM3.0 cards which are unusual design and finally with RTX series Turing they all died off. Alienware Area 51 R1 and R2 which used 9th gen were massive failures due to GPU fires and what not, I think they had to use 2x 330W PSUs and this Eurocom 780W won't work. Reply
Silver5urfer - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
For those who are curious on these DTRs and forum aspects and want to increase their life and service, they should have known NBR but it was shutdown, a replacement by community was created called notebooktalk, go over there and see how the older non BGA machines still thrive despite their EOL status. Replydrajitshnew - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
I had a similar experience with a Lenovo with a 45W Haswell. The QC is just not there ReplyTheinsanegamerN - Friday, April 26, 2024 - link
Hmmmm......my now 8 year old BGA Alienware still works just fine. ReplyGeoffreyA - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
Informative, well-written review. Thank you. Replycerberusss - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
I'd expect some way to connect USB-C. ReplySkeptical123 - Friday, April 26, 2024 - link
There’s probably a way to adapt a type-c connector already though that makes little sense. Since such a physically small connector is limited to a fraction of the power draw this is intended to provide. Not to mention it’s just one 20 volt rail. ReplyPeachNCream - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
That's a 1U server PSU with a different connector and a display panel. Nice to see exploitation of simpletons is ongoing in the PC industry and revolves mostly around playing video games as always. Replytimecop1818 - Monday, April 22, 2024 - link
haha spot on, i thought something looked familiar here, and you can get those used or even new for significantly less. nice scam from eurocommunism. ReplyPeachNCream - Tuesday, April 23, 2024 - link
You know your target audience is ripe for exploitation when you can get away with charging them $130 for the wire between the PSU and their laptop. ReplySkeptical123 - Friday, April 26, 2024 - link
It’s a fair price. I challenge you to find such low volume, custom, high amperage cable sold notably cheaper. Replymindless1 - Sunday, May 5, 2024 - link
Not a fair price at all. A very easy, low bar to meet, would be whether I can acquire the components (in a mere build quantity of ONE) and build it myself cheaper, which I can easily do. This is not true for practically everything else in the tech and power engineering sector that I can think of.Extending that further, I could make them in far lower quantity than Eurocom, and sell for a profit for less than theirs cost - except I am not interested in that business.
There are two ways of looking at fair market value. One is your way of having a captive audience and stating it is custom - but that is what they decided(!), and the other is what is reasonable markup for a BOM without alienating customers. I think we often see consumers complaining when the price of parts becomes excessive for things we own, and ultimately, directly contributes towards things ending up in a landfill. Reply
E.Fyll - Tuesday, April 23, 2024 - link
And a different voltage output, 1U units do not output 20V. If it was a 12V PSU, it would be significantly cheaper. ReplyPeachNCream - Tuesday, April 23, 2024 - link
There is nothing magical or difficult about altering output voltage. ReplyE.Fyll - Tuesday, April 23, 2024 - link
There is a magic spell called "economy of scale". When something is being mass produced, it is far less expensive than something with a low, specialized production. This is true for everything, from single screws to aircraft. And the reason why some parts are much less expensive than their very similar counterparts. Take car tyres as an example, check any "popular" dimension and then every dimension near it, chances are they'll be 25-50% more expensive for a difference of a few millimeters. Similarly, a tiny special screw usually costs three times as much as an M8 bolt. That's how things work, no matter how easy they might seem on paper. ReplyPeachNCream - Tuesday, April 23, 2024 - link
Changing voltage is pretty common and pretty easy:https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/transformer/t... Reply
mindless1 - Sunday, May 5, 2024 - link
Okay and then I accept that it might be 25-50% more expensive, not 300%. Replywwenze - Tuesday, April 23, 2024 - link
This is the kind of thing people are talking about when they say RTX4090 mini PC ReplyHul8 - Wednesday, April 24, 2024 - link
I don't think the Ecodesign 2019/1782 directive applies to this unit.Article 1 ("Subject matter and scope") states that the directive applies to external power supplies.
Then in article 2 which makes definitions for the purpose of the directive, 'external power supply' is (among other things) defined to have output power not exceeding 250 watts.
I suppose it's reasonable that power bricks exceeding 250W are not considered consumer grade, therefore not appropriate to regulate together with consumer electric equipment. Reply