Omen power adapter upgrade

[AVGuruRalph]

I have the 5110nr, I believe. It's got the GTX960m. I am a tech with over 35 yrs. exp in building and overclocking. I realized that the stock charger seems underpowered, at least the one I received with this unit, which I bought used "like new" on Amazon for $850. I was somewhat let down initially upon testing the system for performance, then I found it would double it's performance when on battery power. This indicated to me that the unit was able to draw more current from the battery than when plugged in. Having an understanding of power requirements and electronics, I realized the unit may benefit from using a higher wattage power supply. I bought this baby intending to run "Project C.A.R.S." which is purportedly the most advanced racing sim ever made, with awesome graphics blowing away all current Xbox/PS4 etc. platforms. I found I could run it reasonably well on battery power with the system dialed in using Intel Extreme and PrecisionX for pushing the CPU & GPU to their comfortable limits. Also something I've learned over the years is it's generally best to use the true HP drivers for GPU, manufacturers tend to custom tweak a given driver for their specififc model giving it the best performance even though the revision is never near the most current. Now, the big reveal...

I decided t take a chance and buy a used 230watt HP power supply for $38 amazon, then splice the cord so the power adapter would fit this model. I went from not being able to charge while plugged in, to charging while playing full power. More importantly, my framerates went from 25-30fps plugged in to original 120watt adapter, to 50-55fps on battery, to....200+fps using this beast 230watt adapter I made!!!!! The GPU goes from a locked 700 right up to 1235 or more when plugged into the high powered adapter. I have been using this setup for a week, run many tests and really rocked this thing, not one problem, shutdown, etc. My final question is, why WHY doesn't HP offer a higher powered adapter???? Isn't this supposedly a GAMING laptop????

:))

[banhien]

Hi,

Due to many pages are down now I can't confirm but 120W is enough for that kind of machine. I don't play games but my games laptop has 230W PSU.

You can always buy higher wattage charger using the same paremeters (voltage and connectors). I think two reasons vendors (including HP) only supply "just enough" power are cost and weight.

Regards.

[AVGuruRalph]

Hi, thanx for your input. I am curious to see if anyone has been able to find an original HP power adapter with 230 watts, or whatever they recommend as the minimum for this model while offering full functionality. My goal is to aquire the thinnest I can find for portability, while still being able to run at full power and charge at the same time. To clarify from my first post, a) Stock 120watt psu does not have the ability to charge the laoptop while it is turned on, only power it. First Laptop I've ever seen do this, and I've owned over 20 in mylife, and worked on hundreds. b) Stock psu does not allow GPU to run above 700mhz., while the GTX960M is rated up to 1200. It does in fact run right up to 1200 with my new adapter configuration, but this thing is 10"x4"x2", it's so big it's comical. I'm sure they are packaging the 120watt psu for the reasons you mentioned, cost effective and portability, as that's always a concern. Anyone who has input on availability of a "stock" adapter from HP offering full functionality, I haven't found one. 

[banhien]

Hi,

As mentioned above, weight and that is the rule of physics (till now). No slim charger over 120W. As mentioned above, my charger is 230W and it is half a size of a tissue box, its weight is over 1kg. Probaly you can try 150W with 700g

      http://www8.hp.com/us/en/mpc/oas/product-detail.html?oid=3716395

Regards.