Dennis,
Agree completely, and that's the way I run my late model notebook on board.
The limitations of old iron and old software weren't worth messing with, so
I did make the trade-off to use more juice. And I upped the amp-hours on the
latest set of boat batteries I installed just to play it safe.
Len


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"Dennis Pogson" wrote in message
...
"Len Krauss" wrote in message
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I have an old Toshiba Satellite notebook that runs fine direct from
12vdc.
Few if any of the newer notebooks will do that, as their voltage
requirements are much higher. Someone suggested the higher voltage was
mainly a battery charging requirement and that by removing battery some
notebooks will run off 12vdc. My new one didn't. And it draws lots of
current too, by comparison to old notebook -- more than most pocket
inverters can handle.
Len

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The manufacturers wouldn't supply 16 volt power units if the modern
laptops
would run on 12 volts. Since most batteries are only 10.8 volts, the power
requirements are all to do with the laptop, not the battery as has been
suggested. Can't understand why so many boat owners won't invest in an
inverter, it can't be the expense, and these voltage step-up units are
more
expensive than inverters, mainly due to lack of demand I guess. My laptop
runs happily on my small 180-watt inverter, using it's own power unit for
step-down. The last laptop I got to run on 12 volts was an ancient Tosh,
which ran Dos 3.2 only, not much bloody use in a modern navigation
envirnment!

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