Backup Power Options for Laptop When Power Outage?

Okay some things I want to mention.


The reason why I want backup power is because I play online poker as my sole source of income. Now I do not make much money at all. Basically enough money to get by in a 3rd world country so that should give you an idea of how little money I make. If it was someone who makes a lot of money doing this, obviously spending a lot of money on backup battery wouldn't be a big issue. I play lower stakes online poker tournaments, and for those of you familiar with that, once you are playing, it doesn't end until x amount of hours. It is not like okay I got a power outage, I am not going to play anymore. Well you can do that, but the issue is you are going to lose all your buyins for these tournaments. Now if i were playing a different format of poker, I could be done in few minutes or at most 1 hour with another format. I also play lot of tables as well at the same time... this is required because you need to put in volume especially at the lower stakes I play.


The issue with playing tournaments is... when you start a tournament, if you were to last very long and go deep, it could last anywhere from as short as say 5 hours all the way to even 12 hours. But most tournaments are done in 8 to 9 hours. The shorter ones last between 4-5 hours. So if i have a power outage, I would prefer it happening late in the evening because if it does, then I only need say few hours of battery backup. Or if the power outage happens before I even start playing, then I won't even play because I know I won't have say at least 8 hours of backup. Now if a power outage happens right after I start playing which is the worst scenario, I unregister any other tournaments I already registered but haven't started yet. I also make sure to not register any upcoming tournaments. Does that make sense?


That is why I ask about the best power backup options where it does't cost that much for someone like me.


Thanks.

Well keep in mind, in addition to powering your own laptop, you would have to have UPS on your router, cable modem, etc. Then, your ISP also has to have battery or generator power to keep the power going for x amount of time. Might be no use to ensure you can go at least 8 hours if your ISP can only go for 2 hours before their network equipmnt goes down.

Thanks for the clarification, Newmann. What you're wanting to accomplish makes more sense now.

As pparks1 said, be sure you have a priority on keeping your cable modem and router powered. For my needs, that's my only priority and the only devices attached to my UPS.

pparks1 said:

Well keep in mind, in addition to powering your own laptop, you would have to have UPS on your router, cable modem, etc. Then, your ISP also has to have battery or generator power to keep the power going for x amount of time. Might be no use to ensure you can go at least 8 hours if your ISP can only go for 2 hours before their network equipmnt goes down.

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Has @newmann posted how they access the internet? They could be using 4G or 5G through their cell provider.

Okay so I didn't mention about how I will access the internet. Well everytime there is a power outage, the internet is almost out almost 100% of the time so the modem/router isn't going to work. I always use my cell phone and then tether data so I can use the internet. So with my phone, say I get few hours of battery with it. I do have a small phone powerbank that I use with that phone. So then I would then charge that phone. I am aware that when you tether internet with your phone, the battery wears out much faster. I would assume while using the phone battery, then recharging it when necessary while still using it, then continuing to use it, I should be able to get at least 6 hours of battery while on data.


There are times when my internet goes out and I have to use my phone to tether internet. But that isn't an issue. My concern is much more the power to my laptop. Because even if internet is out, I use my phone to tether and then charge my phone if it gets low in battery. Or I can use the small phone powerbank.

Newmann, I have an XPS 9510 OLED and I know I don't get as much battery time as you do with your newer XPS 9520. I can turn my screen brightness down to 25% (I know it isn't comfortably bright) and it is still useable. At 25% brightness I can easily get 8 or more hours of up-time on my XPS 9510 battery.

I suggest you make this test, turn your screen brightness down to the point it is still just useable for your work and see how long your battery lasts. I think this could go a long way toward solving your problem. And you only have to do it if you have a power outage!

And don't forget that your PW7015L can power your phone as well.

Denis

I'd be inclined to use a 4 / 5g usb LTE dongle, with a data sim which would be powered by the laptop and removing the need to keep the phone charged or mess with tethering.
I used that method with a laptop, mainly when away from home when no Wifi available but also handy during power cuts.

newmann said:

Okay so I didn't mention about how I will access the internet. Well everytime there is a power outage, the internet is almost out almost 100% of the time so the modem/router isn't going to work. I always use my cell phone and then tether data so I can use the internet. So with my phone, say I get few hours of battery with it. I do have a small phone powerbank that I use with that phone. So then I would then charge that phone. I am aware that when you tether internet with your phone, the battery wears out much faster. I would assume while using the phone battery, then recharging it when necessary while still using it, then continuing to use it, I should be able to get at least 6 hours of battery while on data.


There are times when my internet goes out and I have to use my phone to tether internet. But that isn't an issue. My concern is much more the power to my laptop. Because even if internet is out, I use my phone to tether and then charge my phone if it gets low in battery. Or I can use the small phone powerbank.

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I have two backup batteries that I bought from Walmart to charge my cell phone if needed. I forget the price but I think they where less then 20 dollars. If you lived in a house and could afford it, a generator would be a great solution to your problem. Being used on electronics, go with an inverter generator. I know I could be wrong but I still think that something like the cable I linked to would work so you could use the power banks you already own. As long as it's a USB charging cable and one end fits your power banks and the other end fits your laptop, I don't see why it wouldn't work. The only downside I see is that if your new laptop uses more power, the power banks may have a shorter time to work. I do hope you find a reasonable solution to your problem.

I am aware of those phone batteries. I have a small 5000 mah one that i use for my iphone.

Isn't a generator not meant to be inside the house though? I always heard something like it isn't safe to be kept in the house and meant for outside? How much would it cost for one and how many hours can you get out of it with charging a laptop only like the xps 15 9520 which is power hungry?

I believe that person mentioned a truck battery or a deep cycle battery? That person said 1 would be already very good and you need an inverter and a charger? Is that correct? That person also said if you get a 2nd spare battery, you literally could power your whole home for a full day or so. Has anyone here done that?

A generator is meant to be outside of the house. If it's a portable generator, you can just fill it with gas, (some can also run on propane) run an extension cord into the house and run your stuff on it. Costs are from about $500 to $2000. These things are intended to run bigger loads like your refrigerators, etc. this would have 0 problems running your laptop.

Or you can get a whole home generator, and that gets fed into your panel and when the power goes out, it runs of something like natural gas and powers the entire house. But now you are talking $7000 and up.

pparks1 said:

A generator is meant to be outside of the house. If it's a portable generator, you can just fill it with gas, (some can also run on propane) run an extension cord into the house and run your stuff on it. Costs are from about $500 to $2000. These things are intended to run bigger loads like your refrigerators, etc. this would have 0 problems running your laptop.

Or you can get a whole home generator, and that gets fed into your panel and when the power goes out, it runs of something like natural gas and powers the entire house. But now you are talking $7000 and up.

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They live in an apartment so a generator of any size is not an option.

newmann said:

Isn't a generator not meant to be inside the house though?

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At the expense off getting myself in hot water I have to ask. Is that a serious question or are you just messing with us?

Winuser said:

At the expense off getting myself in hot water I have to ask. Is that a serious question or are you just messing with us?

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This is a serious question. I do not know anything about this which is why I ask. Someone had suggested a generator a while back but then recall someone mentioning that is meant for outside and not a small apartment etc. Then someone else suggested a car battery but then I wasn't sure if that is good idea either.

I bought and tested the Dell PW7018LC usb-c powerbank now with my Dell XPS 15 9520. Had to first charge it for few hours. When i plugged it into the usb c port on my xps 9520 laptop, message pops up bottom right corner


Battery saver

Slow charger

To speed up charging, use the charger that came with the device



Now on the bottom right icon with the battery, there is always like a black exclamation mark there no matter what it seems. it only says plugged in... but doesn't say charging. My old xps with the barrel powerbank showed plugged in and charging. However, it does seem to charge the laptop battery. Am using the laptop at same time as well. However, the poker site i am testing on... doesn't use my 3050 graphics card and only using the intel iris xe graphics card. i normally play lot of tables at once so i use my laptop pretty aggressively, but here am testing just one table which means my cpu usage is like 5% only where normally its much more than this.. same with the ram . That non-us poker site that i normally play on does use the graphics card. But as long as it does slow charge right now, then it should work fine right? i can't test this while in the us.



My other concern is when i connect the powerbank to my laptop battery at around 70%... after about 50 minutes, it already is down to 1 light out of the 5 lights. Battery went up from 70% to around 97% as of right now as i type this. So does this sound about right? Seems like it last max an hour before it goes from 5 to 0 lights. But then again i gained 27% in battery increase so that is about right? Not only that... if i am using my laptop normally when i am playing and using lot of cpu and ram, possible this goes out in half hour or so?



With my old xps 9550 and that pw7015 barrel powerbank, i remember people said the moment you have a power outage even if your laptop battery is at 100%, always connect the powerbank first and use it up and then use your laptop battery last. People mentioned if you let your laptop battery go down to 10% and then use the powerbank, it would use up even more power. That is true right? i use to let laptop battery drain first before powerbank back at first.. So back with the old xps and barrel powerbank, i use the powerbank when laptop battery at 100%, then i remember it took between 1 hour 30 minute to 1 hour 45 minutes before it went out. So would that be similar to what i just did now? Surprise how fast it went to one light.


My concern with buying this powerbank was because someone posted somewhere that the xps 15 9520 requires a minimum of 90W for it to charge. This PW7018-LC only does 65W. But from the test I just did, it works then right? It does charge so it should be not an issue?



The xps 15 9520 power adapter reads something like this.


Dell Output 5.0V = 1.0A/5.0W, 20.0V = 6.5A/130.0W

Input 100-240V-1.8A 50-60Hz

newmann said:

This is a serious question. I do not know anything about this which is why I ask. Someone had suggested a generator a while back but then recall someone mentioning that is meant for outside and not a small apartment etc. Then someone else suggested a car battery but then I wasn't sure if that is good idea either.

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The gasses released from the engine would either make you very sick or kill you and anyone else in your apartment. It would also be very noisy.

Okay. But I was surprised why other posters had suggested this when I asked about it. Now if it was a car battery or a deep cycle battery kept in an apartment, is that okay or not?


Also can anyone look at the test I did with the Dell PW7018LC powerbank I recently bought and tested it and tell me that is fine with what I tested? It seems to charge but does show the slow charger message. So using it with the xps 15 9520 is fine right?

newmann said:

Also can anyone look at the test I did with the Dell PW7018LC powerbank I recently bought and tested it and tell me that is fine with what I tested? It seems to charge but does show the slow charger message. So using it with the xps 15 9520 is fine right?

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As I said in one of your other threads on this subject,

Try3;2475794 said:

If that's what the original power supply adapter produces then that's what the computer needs to be able to run itself and recharge its battery.
I am not at all surprised that you are finding limitations using that lower power supply [the powerbank].

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PW7015L Power Companion With Dell XPS 9510/9520? - post #19 - TenForums

That message about having the wrong adapter is spot on. Your PW7018LC powerbank cannot supply what your computer wants.

Denis

Try3 said:

As I said in one of your other threads on this subject,

PW7015L Power Companion With Dell XPS 9510/9520? - post #19 - TenForums

That message about having the wrong adapter is spot on. Your PW7018LC powerbank cannot supply what your computer wants.

Denis

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So you would suggest returning it then? The customer rep i spoke to said it would work because it is usb-c. So they are 100% wrong here? Now if it doesn't work, then why does it still charge then even if it is slow charging?


But are you also saying that when I used the old xps 15 9550 with the barrel PW7015L, it cannot supply enough power as well or not? Or in that situation it was okay? Because the volts seem to be very similar? I do recall when I did use the old barrel PW7015L with the xps 15 9550, i believe it showed plugged in and charging. But the 1st message that popped up said the powerbank wasn't enough W or so ... so it would slow charge.