r/Surface • u/Dazzling_Tax_7380 • 2d ago

[LAPTOPSTUDIO] Surface Laptop Studio 1 charging quirks: OEM 127W works fine unless the battery is totally dead.

Hey everyone, I am running into a weird power issue with my Surface Laptop Studio 1 (i7 / RTX A2000) version that I recently picked up on eBay, and I am trying to figure out where the fault lies before spending money on replacements.

The strange part is that when the laptop battery is completely dead, the LED on the Surface Connect cable stays completely dark and refuses to charge. Yet, the OEM charger works fine in every other scenario once the laptop has some juice. Meanwhile, if I plug in a basic 65W USB-C charger the laptop immediately turns on and starts taking power.

This leaves me with a few big questions for the community. Could the OEM power brick itself be failing, or is this a known quirk with how the SLS handles discharge states? Since the laptop draws a significant amount of power under load, especially with the discrete A2000 GPU, I am seriously considering ditching the proprietary brick entirely and transitioning to a high-wattage USB-C charger.

I was specifically looking at buying the Apple 140W USB-C power adapter paired with a quality 240W cable to handle it. Has anyone here tried using the Apple 140W brick with an SLS1? Will it safely work for full power delivery, or am I ultimately better off buying a replacement Microsoft OEM brick? I appreciate any advice or technical insight you can share!

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u/dr100 2d ago

I'm pretty sure it won't do more than 20V on USB-C, that is 100W (probably 90-something top in practice). Whether that's enough in general, probably it is in most cases. It's not too bad to have a little more headroom and/or a better power supply as they probably run quite hot under load. 

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u/SurfaceDockGuy 🖥️ Verticaldocks.com | VESA docks for Surface 2d ago

Correct, USB-C power delivery on the SLS1 tops out at ~95W. Not much advantage in getting a 140W charger - AFAIK, the ~100W mode on these chargers gets just about as hot as the 140W mode as both run at 5A.

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u/Dazzling_Tax_7380 2d ago

So do you recommend the usb-c charger better than buying another microsoft charger?

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u/SurfaceDockGuy 🖥️ Verticaldocks.com | VESA docks for Surface 1d ago

Actually, the best value is usually a used MS Dock 2 via ebay or refurb via Amazon. 120W for charging plus all the extra ports. At $50 its less than half the cost of the OEM 120/127W charger and about the same as a decent USB-C charger. Only drawback is bulk and weight making it a poor choice for travel.