Actual power requirement of Z Book Firefly 14 G10

[OnwardHK]

I am using a ZBook 14 G10  (13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1370P 1.90 GHz,  Iris Xe, 32GB, 512GB, non-touch screen).   The charger that comes with it is 65W, the back label of the notebook says 20V, 3.25A (ie. 65W) as well.

Does it really needs all 65W when I do not have a discrete graphics chip ?   I bought a 3rd party docking station has PD3.0 pass through and the docking itself needs 15W.  I have connected a monitor via DP, LAN, webcam, speakerphone, and wireless headset.   Will 20V @ 2.5A (50W) be enough to run the PC reliably?

or should I go buy a dedicated 100W GaN charger ?

[TzortzisG · Accepted solution]

Hello OnwardHK.

Laptops in general, and HP laptops are no exception, will run reliably even when underpowered. However, several throttling schemes are available and the BIOS will decide which one must be implemented. Meaning that they will run reliably, just not at the maximum possible speed and performance.  Business laptops in particular have the ability to draw power from the battery when needed so that the system never actually has to perform worse. This is usually through an option in the firmware setup called "boost converter". You can read about it here: 

HP PC Commercial BIOS (UEFI) Setup (June 2024) 

[OnwardHK]

Thank you very much for that explanation.    I am now dedicated a 100W GaN purely for the notebook and the docking by just using its USB-C PD3.0 which delivers 65W.     The original problem that triggered my post was that I discovered that frequently when I plug or unplug other devices into the other ports on this charger, the notebook will lose the docking station and may not reconnect automatically, needing to unplug and replug the docking, and the docking died after a couple of months.    After checking with the charger's manufacturer, they confirmed that whenever another device is plugged or unplugged from the charger, the charger reset very briefly to recalculate its power output distribution.  This is the behaviour of all GaN chargers, they claimed (it makes sense).   Apparently the docking does not have enough capacitors to survive this momentary reset (of milliseconds duration), and may have died from these frequent "brownouts".