Originally Posted by
raehl311
The short answer is that the in-seat power systems are not intended to be used.
Your best chance of success is don't try and charge a battery and use a laptop at the same time, and plug in your adapter first and then wait a bit for the capacitors in the adapter to charge up before plugging your adapter into your device.
I also carry a separate power adapter for my laptop that I know maxes out at 65W just for use on airplanes. Usually works, but if my laptop is on, only charges the batter a couple of percent per hour.
I use a 17" high power Laptop for scientific work and only have about 25% success on UA, regardless of aircraft type or cabin. I often find that repeated attempts to plug it in will eventually allow it to "grab" power. Once connected, I'm usually able to stay powered up, although not always. So, my suggestion is to keep trying and you may get powered up. Using a slower charger can help, but not easily compatible with my computer. I rarely have problems with tablet chargers on UA, so it is a pretty low amount of power they dribble out to PAX. Really annoying when I'm trying to work, but better than nothing, I suppose.