# Cooler Master Universal Notebook Power Adapter



## Pilgrim (Jul 1, 2011)

After the issue that I described in this thread, I wasn't sure what to do with regard to a replacement AC adapter for my Toshiba Satellite laptop.

There are a lot of cheap off brand replacements ($25 and below) as well as one from Toshiba that was on sale for about $62. But there were many negative reviews for all of them, most likely due to the poor design that I noted in the other thread. The average review on most sites from Amazon to Toshiba's own site was 3 stars or less. Not good for a rather basic consumer electronic item. 

I think its probably conservative to say that in 3+ years this laptop running Vista Home Premium has blue screened over 100 times for various reasons. There have occasionally been other problems too. I didn't want to pour a lot of money into a solution that might not work for long when I'm contemplating replacing the computer in the near future anyway. I already had to buy a replacement battery recently. But I was also hoping to avoid replacing the laptop entirely at this point. So after searching around, I came up with this: Amazon.com: Cooler Master NA 90W Universal Notebook/Netbook P0wer Adapter - (RP090-S19AJ1-US): Electronics

Most of the universal chargers I had seen were close to twice the price, so the relatively inexpensive price (cheaper than Toshiba Direct's replacement) is what first got my attention. I figured that if it worked that I would have something that wasn't tied to this specific laptop and which could be used with other laptops in the future as a backup or travel charger. It even comes with a handy little travel bag. 

The charger is supposed to be able to charge most laptops. It has different tips to fit the different manufacturers, and you can go to the Cooler Master website to see if it will work with your model. (However, the website isn't that easy to navigate to be able to get to that page.) The instructions note that some laptops have a proprietary "ID" that prevents this adapter from charging the battery. But it is supposed to be able to provide power even if it can't charge the battery. From reading reviews I think this issue mainly affects certain Dell models. 

After arriving today, it seems to be working ok and is charging my aftermarket battery, which charges very sloooowly. I'll post an update if anything goes awry. But I  that won't be necessary!


----------



## Joseph Scibbe (Jul 1, 2011)

I suggest you get a Mac.


----------



## Pilgrim (Jul 1, 2011)

Joseph Scibbe said:


> I suggest you get a Mac.



LOL. If you want to pay me the difference between a Windows notebook and a Mac, I'd probably take you up on it. Most of the serious problems were very early on. I almost took it back to the store but I got on the phone with MS and they sent me a hotfix that corrected that issue. If memory serves, it had to with downloading and installing different firewall drivers than what came with the computer, but it may have been antivirus drivers instead. 

Speaking of Apple software, my iTunes wouldn't update for well over a year, and it wouldn't uninstall either. It might have been closer to two years. I think it was something like version 9.02 and the latest version is 10.3. Within the past month or so I finally downloaded some utilities to uninstall it and delete it (and all Apple software) entirely from my system. As with removing Norton from an old desktop a few years ago, getting rid of that version of iTunes was probably about as bad as getting rid of a virus. I downloaded the latest version of iTunes, so we'll see if anything goes wrong with it.


----------



## VictorBravo (Jul 1, 2011)

Pilgrim said:


> Joseph Scibbe said:
> 
> 
> > I suggest you get a Mac.
> ...



Or you could go real cheap and by a netbook. I bought an Acer Aspire One about 2 1/2 years ago. That little thing has never given me a problem. It actually has become my primary computer, even though I have other laptops. It's small, light, and steady.

Sure, maybe a bit underpowered, but I run literally everything I need on it: Acrobat Pro, DragonNaturally Speaking, MS Office, plus various specialty programs. It cost less than $300 in late 2008.


----------



## Wayne (Jul 1, 2011)

Had to buy a new charger for my Dell Inspiron. Found a number of third party knockoffs for various prices. Bought one for about $5.00 and it works 
fine.

As to those 100 bluescreens, if you are planning on replacing it soon, why not give Ubuntu 11.4 a shot? Save all your files to an external harddrive, 
(merely as a safety precaution) then load a live cd in the disk drive. You can run that Linux system without wiping the existing system.


----------



## Pilgrim (Jul 2, 2011)

Wayne said:


> Had to buy a new charger for my Dell Inspiron. Found a number of third party knockoffs for various prices. Bought one for about $5.00 and it works
> fine.
> 
> As to those 100 bluescreens, if you are planning on replacing it soon, why not give Ubuntu 11.4 a shot? Save all your files to an external harddrive,
> (merely as a safety precaution) then load a live cd in the disk drive. You can run that Linux system without wiping the existing system.




I probably would have gone for a cheap knockoff too if the reviews hadn't been so terrible. That's what we did with my wife's. 

Thanks for the reminder on Ubuntu and Linux. When I eventually replace this one, that's something I'd like to play around with.

---------- Post added at 01:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:23 AM ----------




VictorBravo said:


> Pilgrim said:
> 
> 
> > Joseph Scibbe said:
> ...



I had briefly considered a netbook before I bought my notebook in 2008. But at that time the difference in price for a netbook and a notebook at a sale price wasn't that great. I want to say I paid something like $499, and I've seen some newer machines from Acer and other companies at that price or cheaper today at Wal Mart. 

But I haven't looked at netbooks lately. The laptop was also to be used for work and needed to be able to run some company specific applications, so I didn't want to risk what might be an underpowered machine. I want to say that the netbooks available at that time tended to have much smaller hard drives, but I don't know if that's the case anymore. With so much in the cloud these days, that's not likely to be a big issue for many people anyway. With the name netbook, I would assume it denotes a machine that is mainly designed for you to be able to get on the internet while having a more basic and limited amount of software loaded as compared to a notebook. 

I have a lot of theological articles stored, mostly in PDF's. After a few years, I see that some of them are of unknown origin and a few don't even have an author listed. No chance of quoting one of those unless perhaps the author and source could be ascertained via a Google search.


----------



## Wayne (Jul 2, 2011)

> I have a lot of theological articles stored, mostly in PDF's. After a few years, I see that some of them are of unknown origin and a few don't even have an author listed. No chance of quoting one of those unless perhaps the author and source could be ascertained via a Google search.



Take a look at the Properties section of those PDF's. You might find the needed metadata there.


----------

