I appreciate the link. I wanted to see what you saw, so I opened the ZIP file and it expands to 27 files. I believe the relevant file is USB_PD_R3.2_V1.2_2026_05_20.pdf, page 42, which states:
3.2.5.2. SPR Programmable Power Supply (PPS) Programmable Power Supply (PPS) is Optional. When included, the voltages and currents a PPS Shall support are as defined in Table 3.4.
If it’s optional in rev. 3.2, I assume it’s optional in rev 3.0. I’m a bit astonished because PPS is probably the most signficant feature of rev.3. The industry is not competent enough to even tell consumers which rev a device conforms to. But if it did, typical Wikipedia-informed consumers who see PD “rev.3” advertised would naturally expect PPS. As you are correct that PPS is indeed optional, many consumers will get burnt by the misunderstanding.
A potentially interesting follow-up question would be whether the laptop’s mainboard PDO tells you the laptop supports PPS even though its power brick doesn’t.
What’s PDO?
The problem seems to be that a laptop could be designed to /need/ PPS, e.g. if the voltage it needs is well below 20v. While most PSUs do not advertise USB-PD 3(+) compliance, much less PPS.
Used PC charities and shops tolerate a certain age limit of hardware. My local charity tried (and failed) to sell PCs with linux installations. So they will only accept used hardware that can run a relatively non-ancient version of Windows. They said generally they do not want anything older than 5 years (but somewhat contradicted themselves by saying if it has a Win7 or later sticker on it, it’s young enough to accept). Anyway, 2013 hardware is on the chopping block because the FOSS platforms that do not demand high-performance hardwrae are unpopular. Most people are naive about the spychips and used PC shops are oblivious to their usefulness.
It’s sad that the spy chips were discovered over a decade ago, and now 13 years after AMD began making them we still don’t have info as basic as which chips have it.
I personally want to know which 2013 hardware to grab before it gets melted down as scrap metal.
That’s the problem with Lemmy -- it was designed to support silent downvotes. Some admins realize it’s a bad idea and have the wisdom to disable downvotes instance-wide until the Lemmy design improves.
My guess in this case: among AMD subscribers must be some loyal fans who “chase the shiny” and to avoid their own cognitive dissonance they would want to suppress anything negative about AMD’s later chips in an /emporer wears no clothes/ fashion. But w/silent votes, we can only guess.