Originally Posted by Steve M

This exact thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I have a Dell whose power supply is rated at 65W on the label, so it's a bit of a surprise that it would overcurrent an outlet that supposedly provides 75W. I tried it in my neighbor's outlet but got the same results. I didn't think of removing the battery as has been suggested on other threads - I'll definitely try that next time, but it's a bit disappointing that I won't know in advance if my laptop will work on a NW flight (and this is an issue since most of my NW flights are between the US and NRT). I've never had a problem using emPower on CO, which supposedly is also current limited at 75W.

I'm tempted to buy a current meter to measure what the actual current draw is of my laptop.

Between this and other threads, dozens of people on FT alone are having this problem on NW (although some report it being more serious, such as disabling seats). So this would seem to indicate that it's a systemic problem with NW's in-seat power. I wonder if NW has any awareness of this or plans to address it. It seems kind of silly to go to the expense of putting in in-seat power if it doesn't actually work in normal situations (and at least in my case, in a situation well within the published specs, at least if I'm to believe the label on my power adapter).