Job Discussion Forums

[banksider]

Hello Ladies and Gents,

I'm moving to HCMC in September and will of course be bringing my laptop with me. I bought it in Poland and am currently using it in the UK with an adapter with no problems.

Will it simply be a case of using a plug-adapter in Vietnam, or is the current there different too, necessitating such things as circuit breakers etc?

I ask as a friend of mine plugged in his computer in Poland which he had bought in Thailand, and it promptly exploded.

[snollygoster]

220v in Vietnam. 2 pin plug. Adapter available from ben Thanh Markets about $1.00. I recall in Europe the supply is 110v. There may be a switch on your lap-top to cater for the change, and some adjust automatically. but I'd check before plugging it into Vietnams supply.

[mark_in_saigon]

you can plug an American two prong 110 system into the 220 outlet and it magically gives you 110. Monitors, desktops, laptops, USB external hard drives, they have all worked for me. If the cable has the ground plug, the VN just break that off and shazaam. You may prefer to use the ground bypass thingy we have in the west that essentially does the same thing and not mess up your ground plug, esp on a good laptop power supply. I guess their outlets output 110 to a 110 plug, and then their funny 220 plugs get 220 (funny to us, the 110 probably seems funny to them). Too bad we don't have such a deal in the west, we have to specially wire and plug a 220 circuit. But if you only need half the juice, not a problem. It works fine, I have 3 110 systems running here, no problems.

[Bold As Love]

I am often surprised at questions that come up on a board like this, as it seems that anyone who can find the thread has the skills to do a google search. Here is a link for the OP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_power_around_the_world

Please don't think that any appliance anywhere can be simply plugged in and expected to work if you simply alter the plug. So for computers look at the power input and you will usually see something like "110-220 V" and that is good news. The computer has an internal transformer and steps down the voltage to a lower level that it uses. Nearly every PC, ipod, etc. will do this.

But many radios, irons, and other electrical devices will not. So if your radio needs 110V and you alter the plug to accept 220V, the internal power supply will instantly fail. Use a little common sense, and small transformers are readily available if you do have a 110V and want to run it on 220V in Vietnam.