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16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2020 20:04
by twilanyc
Hey friends!

I have a new 16" MacBook Pro with 8 core i9 and radion 5500m and while I am running it under heavy load (resolume, mad mapper, etc) the battery slowly drains even though it's on the power adapter. I haven't been able to find much by way of apple forums or other users with this issue. I have found that windows laptops with similar configs use their own proprietary power adapters as 100w is the limit for power delivery over thunderbolt 3 and this hardware seems to require more than that.

What do y'all think? Did apple design a machine that required more power than the adapter can provide in order to stay with the thunderbolt style power adapter? It's frustrating for how much I spent on this, seriously considering returning it and going with a Razer.

I went to the apple store and the dude there was like try running fewer apps (eye roll, why buy a $3000 computer?) and they exchanged it and the problem persists. I double checked in system info that it is the 96w adapter and the cable is delivering the full 96 watts.

Any advice or consolation appreciated. I used to run resolume and mad mapper on a 2015 MacBook with integrated graphics and it could handle it! It brings this brand new machine to its knees.

Re: 16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 11:18
by Zoltán
Well, a power adapter should deliver the amount of power a machine can consume. Sounds like very bad design!
Again...

What you could try on the software side, would be limiting the FPS in the composition settings to 50% of your actual display FPS. (so, to 30FPS if you have a 60FPS display.)
This would mean half the amount of frames - half the work for your GPU, but still should look nice.

That said, if you're not tied to OSX, then Windows gaming laptops give a lot more performance for the same price.

Re: 16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 21:14
by Warspite
This is ok.
They can consume more than power adapter delivers. Especially with tb-periferals. This feature is here for years. It is even noted in notebookcheck's reviews.
It is not a big problem until difference is too big and laptop discharges quicky. Usually they are more limited by thermals so it is very difficult to discharge battery completely, usually it is overheating and throttling. :lol:

Re: 16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 15:26
by Intange
Outside of the power drain issue how does the 16" machine run Resolume? Are you using multiple outs? Do you have the 8Gb GPU? I am considering getting this machine and so am wondering about your experience.

Thanks

Re: 16" MacBook Pro battery draining while on power adapter

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 17:17
by hubissimo
this has been a constant issue with all mbp since like 2016-17. I'm on a 2017 mbp fully loaded. I'm at 81% now. attached to 1 external monitor and running Resolume in the BG. connect straight into a port if possible, that helps.