Dell 130W Watt PA-4E AC DC 19.5V Power Adapter Battery Charger Brick with Cord

Heres a cautionary tale for people with laptops: if your charging cable has a light indicator and it suddenly stops working and then youre computer says it cant recognize the AC power supply youre using, get a new AC adapter immediately. I have a Dell XPS 15 L501x with a quad core Intel Core i7 processor. This laptop rocks. As a classical guitarist and a pianist, my fingers are sensitive to the feel of keyboards, and the keyboard on this puppy is awesome. Its firm but not overly firm, and it gives that satisfying little click without being too loud. The JBL speakers kick ass over anything Ive heard on other laptops. And the screen? It rivals any screen out there. UPDATE (10/3/2015): I joked before about the sparking that occurs when you plug this into an outlet. Well, I guess I shouldnt have joked about it because suddenly when I plugged it in, the light on the far end of the cord (i.e. the circular blue light) would go on for a second and then go off, and no power was running through it. I checked all the connections and couldnt find a problem. The problem? The sparking destroyed the outlet. But when I plugged this unit into a different outlet, the lovely sparking occurred and the power brick worked. Very bizarre. So, Im changing this from a 4-star to a 3-star rating. This also demonstrates a problem with reviews on Amazon: The original review and rating should stay up but get pushed down the viewing queue as more recent updates and potentially changed ratings are created. Its good to see the history of things. Why talk about my laptop? Because all of this high-end tech requires a lot of energy. About a year after I received this laptop, the little blue light ring on the AC adapter cord wouldnt turn on. At that time, my laptop was under warranty. It was under what I call the Cadillac of all warranties which is Dells full on-site warranty. Theres a reason why Im reluctant to unequivocally call it a full warranty, but Ill get to that in a little while. So I called Dell, and the technician assured me that the light going off meant nothing. It was kind of like one Christmas light on the tree going out. So, Im thinking, Damn, if the light means nothing, then why is it there? Ive had other Dell laptops previously, and none of them had any lights on the AC adapter cable. Then shortly after that, my laptop started getting wonky. How wonky? Dell had to send someone out to my house 3 times to replace the motherboard. Seriously, thank god I had the full extended warranty. And also, how much did those three visits and the 3 new motherboards cost Dell? But finally the problem seemed to subside. Then for a couple of years, I would occasionally see this error message pop up on my screen at startup saying that the AC adapter couldnt be recognized. That seemed strange because my laptop was clearly drawing power from the plugged in AC cord. Then about 6 months ago, all hell broke loose. Seriously, I was in the middle of writing a book, and my laptop kept freezing and/or shutting down. And I could never predict when it was going to happen. Fortunately I backed up my hard drive, and then I realized that maybe the whole problem was my hard drive, so I got a new sweet 1TB Western Digital hard drive, cracked open my laptop, installed it, and prayed for the best. That kind of solved the frequency of the problem, but the laptop was still freezing and/or shutting down at least 3 times a day (note: before it was freaking out every 30 minutes). Then I decided to get a new AC adapter. Guess what? Those messages at startup about my laptop not being able to recognize my AC adapter suddenly disappeared. Also, my laptop works a lot better. Of course, the one thing about this genuine Dell power adapter is that every 5 or 10 times I plug it into the wall, it sparks a bit. Who knows what causes that? Im pretty sure its not the fact that Ive been carrying around a bit more static charge as Im trying to wean myself off of Bounce anti-static dryer sheets because Ive heard some negative things about them. People tell me that I have a bit of an electrifying personality. But could the electricity from my personality be somehow tunneling into the rubber of the AC adapter as I plug the thing into the wall outlet and causing a little fireworks display? Hmm.... But at least my laptop works, for the most part. Ive troubleshot the hell out of this situation, and my final conclusion is that all of the craziness that was going on was caused by the AC adapter not working properly (note: the Dell tech told me that these things are only rated to work properly for 1 year, and thats why the warranty for the adapter is only for one year, even though I bought the full service warranty for 3 years. Somehow, Dell consistently fails to mention this when you are in the process of ordering a new laptop from their online store. My best guess is that using the improperly working AC adapter caused a problem with power management by the motherboard. And so now, even though Ive got the AC adapter problem fixed, the current motherboard is still damaged from all the time I was using my previous AC adapter while it was functioning suboptimally. How do I know? Because whenever I use anything that is a bit graphics-intensive (e.g. looking at an online course for Udemy, trying to watch Hulu, or even loading onto the Sports Illustrated website), my laptop freezes immediately like water thrown off the balcony of an apartment in Siberia during the winter. I suppose I could just replace the motherboard, but a new motherboard for this dog costs around $400. Hell, for that much I could get just about get a decent new Dell laptop (note: $400 for the new XPS 15 model with the Skylake processor coming out soon is probably just going to get me the 3-year extended warranty with a little change left over for the actual laptop). What I wish is that a few years ago the Dell tech had said, Doobie, if that little blue light goes out on your AC adapter, youve got to change it, even if it means changing it every year. It would have saved a me a whole lot of time, pain and money, but I probably would still be upset that Dell can make a world-class laptop (and I consider the XPS 15 a world-class laptop), but it cant design a world-class AC adapter? Bizarre.

Just as described

Its a copy

It works well with the computer I have and thats all I know to say.

At least Im not getting the constant message from my Dell laptop to get a new power adapter. Ive had my Dell for about 5 years and I would not buy another one but its still working and this has been my only expense. I cant complain. It works great and came on time.

Worked great for 14 months, then stopped working without notice. The original one lasted over 5 years. Price was good, and got quick delivery

(Left side is the Amazon one and right one is the Original Dell/Alienware) Bought from seller Elite Servers. Fulfilled by Amazon. Idk why the website rotated the pictures. That wasnt me.

My travels beat up on charger cables like this one, this is my third one in two and a half years. Will try to be nicer to this one.