I'm in a pinch. Been offered a charger specifications match. Voltage, amperes, wattage, but plug tip is whit ringed and mine is black ringed. Any significance?
Polarity?
Thanks!
Also, apologies for such a dull contribution / buzz kill to the forum.
Hopefully we can get passed this. Hopefully after I get an answer!
I highly doubt you'd have any issues if the specs you've listed are the same, never had any issues myself mixing Dell chargers/laptops (as long as the output has been sufficient).
^ wot he said. have mixed and matched a few without any concerns over the years.
It may be an indication that it's centre positive or centre negative, anyway there should be a little diagram
like this
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or this
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check the old and new ones match
The polarity will be specified on the charger - would be worth checking to be on the safe side.
It's worth checking of course, but I would be shocked (ho ho) if you had a charger with a Dell plug on it but with the polarity reversed. Unless it's changed relatively recently, they've been using the same charger connection for the last decade at least.
One thing you might find though is that they're 'smart' - if the laptop doesn't recognise it as a Dell charger it'll tell you to jog on.
Latest dell chargers have a mini barrel connector, the older ones are much larger. Not seen colour make a difference. Like all dell kit it's parts bin stuff and so down to whatever supplier they were bending over that week. You laptop will talk to a dell charger and work out how much power it can deliver. My latitude actually slows down when plugged in to some!
Thanks all, picked it up, worked fine. Pretty sure it would, but thought it was worth checking. didn't have the old charger to check the polarity diagrams anyway.
Didn't have a choice, so assumed laptop would be clever enough not to blow itself up if it was wrong. All good.