Charging laptops via USB-C has been causing motherboard failures for years.
But advances in the technology made possible a new European Union regulation that will soon see chargers disappear from laptop boxes altogether.
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With support for the right standard, a USB-C port on your device can do virtually anything.
It can transfer data, video, audio — and even charge your device at the same time.
The EU has taken things a step further: as of late April, every laptop with a charger rated up to 100 watts must support charging via USB-C.
This regulation will allow us to charge all our devices with a single charger, saving the production of millions of new chargers every year.
The technology is mature, and this is a welcome move for the environment. But the road here was paved with some very costly failures.
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A conventional charger is a dumb device. You plug it into your laptop and it starts delivering power at a fixed wattage.
USB-C charging, by contrast, relies on the PD (Power Delivery) standard, which enables a far smarter process.
A USB-C connector has 24 distinct pins, each capable of performing a specific type of task — data transfer, power delivery, or video output. Two of those pins are called CC (Configuration Channel) pins. When you connect a charger to a device, they allow the charger to communicate with the device's charge controller and negotiate the optimal charging power for that device.
The power entering a laptop can reach up to 240 watts, and dedicated components on the motherboard distribute it between the battery and the laptop's various components, preventing excessive voltage and motherboard damage.
The close proximity of the pins to one another turned out to be a critical failure point: any physical damage, manufacturing defect, or moisture that entered the connector could easily create a short circuit between the high-voltage power pins and the sensitive data pins. That short would rapidly destroy the charge controller — and sometimes send a surge of current through the rest of the laptop's components, burning those out as well.
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In recent years, an effective solution to this problem has been developed. Between the charging port and the controllers on the motherboard, protection components are now installed that can absorb a high-voltage spike without burning out, and immediately cut the current if such an event occurs.
In budget models from smaller manufacturers, this solution may not be implemented as a cost-cutting measure. But if you're planning to buy a quality laptop from a well-known Western brand, chances are that before long it will ship without a charger in the box — and with full support for any sufficiently powerful USB-C charger.
*Pictured: the motherboard of an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 premium laptop. The electrical short that occurred near the USB-C port during charging is clearly visible.*
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👋 Hi, I'm Shlomo Strauss — follow me for more content on science and technology.