Charge MS Surface laptop w usb cable

[12Compuguy]

Can I charge a MS Surface laptop model 1943 with a regular A or C usb cable?

MS website is so crowded and convoluted - it's incredible

 

[C1]

AI Overview
No, you cannot charge a Surface laptop model 1943 (which is a Surface Laptop Go) with a regular USB-A or basic USB-C cable because it requires a USB-C Power Delivery (PD) charger with specific wattage and voltage to charge correctly. You can use a USB-C to USB-C cable to charge it, but only with a Power Delivery (PD) compatible charger that can provide at least the 39W the device came with, or higher, for optimal results.

PS: I remember recently trying to charge my DELL 7320 laptop using a 35 watt PS from a chromebook when instead the DELL requires a 65 watt PS. There was an alert in the BIOS of inadequate PS delivery. The unit ran, but the CPU was locked to minimum speed (1.4 Ghz on a 4+ Ghz capable cpu ) & I dont think the battery was able to charge (at least not normally).

 

[mindless1]

PS: I remember recently trying to charge my DELL 7320 laptop using a 35 watt PS from a chromebook when instead the DELL requires a 65 watt PS. There was an alert in the BIOS of inadequate PS delivery. The unit ran, but the CPU was locked to minimum speed (1.4 Ghz on a 4+ Ghz capable cpu ) & I dont think the battery was able to charge (at least not normally).

It's a bit more complicated than that. The Dell PSU had a barrel connector with the two +/- contacts, but also a center pin which was used for data to "authenticate" that the laptop was connected to a specific series of Dell PSU.

You could have substituted a different PSU that was capable of 65W or more and the laptop would have still downclocked the CPU and refused to charge the battery, because there was no authentication signal present.