5 ms·

ha, well I've noticed my battery discharges if I play Civ 6, even when plugged in. so that confirms it too.

aaron_m04 7y ago
Same here. When I started working from home, I set up an external monitor with an HDMI-to-USB-C adapter. Whenever it's plugged in, my battery goes down about 4% per hour with the AC adapter plugged in.
- kosievdmerwe 7y ago
  Are you sending your power via a USB C adapter too? If you use one of these[1] then your laptop will charge more slowly than if you just plugged in the power directly. [1] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-av-multiport-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-a...
  - wingworks 7y ago
    I've only ever seen my laptop's battery discharge while plugged in via one of those USB-C hubs which allow PD "pass-through". But have yet to find one that passes all the power through.
    - TorKlingberg 7y ago
      The adapter claims some of the power for itself and downstream USB devices. I think it has to reserve power statically, so it's always claiming 5W or so.
  - aaron_m04 7y ago
    My charger is an Apple product; it was the lowest-price charger they had available ($73 after tax). Two components: * charging block * male USB A to male USB C cable EDIT: I just clicked your link; no I'm not using that. The cable is plugged into the charging block on one end and the laptop on the other end.
hombre_fatal 7y ago
Are you using the smaller Macbook-vanilla charger or something? I game on my Macbook Pro + two monitors without discharge unless I accidentally use my girlfriend's OG Macbook charger instead of the Pro's charger that's twice the brick. And it can definitely handle Civ 6 (2017 and 2019 MBP).
- saagarjha 7y ago
  I believe some of the MacBook Pros ship with chargers that cannot power them when running at full tilt. (Interestingly, I believe the original iPad Pro did as well.)
  - dalemyers 7y ago
    Yup. I've got last years Macbook Pro, fully specced, and when I run lots of compilations in Xcode the battery steadily drains. I ran an intense script overnight a month or two ago and when I got back in the morning my battery was down to just a few percent. Thankfully the script finished just after that so I got incredibly lucky that it didn't run out all the way and lose all the progress.
    - kartickv 7y ago
      Funnily, the base model is unlikely to have this problem, which makes it a better laptop (at least in this case) for cheaper. Your script won't stop and lose progress.
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    That was the case for my rMBP 2012. Though it was only when running a game and battery discharged very slowly, so was not really an issue, at least for me.
- rpastuszak 7y ago
  Not sure about the parent, but my friend an I had exactly the same issue, both of us are on 16inch MBP 2020 (Civ 6 on Steam). Incredibly annoying once your laptop suddenly slows down and dies after 5h of gameplay. How is this even acceptable? Regardless whether it's a $400 or $3k laptop, I'd expect it to work when charging. I'm two apps (photoshop, lightroom) away from switching to Linux.
serf 7y ago
this kind of behavior would warrant a return from me. do you consider that to be a faulty behavior, or just par-for-the-course of heavy workloads on mobile platforms? i'd hate for that to be the new norm, I use the hell out of my mobile computers, I don't need them draining before I even unplug.
- knodi123 7y ago
  oh, actually it was my fault. I have an air charger and a pro charger, and it turns out they're not interchangeable. The pro charger is, like, 30% bigger, and the laptop battery will not discharge while I'm using that one. My laptop is one of the older magsafe ones, so the people talking about USB-C might be a YMMV kind of thing.

Same here. When I started working from home, I set up an external monitor with an HDMI-to-USB-C adapter. Whenever it's plugged in, my battery goes down about 4% per hour with the AC adapter plugged in.

kosievdmerwe 7y ago
Are you sending your power via a USB C adapter too? If you use one of these[1] then your laptop will charge more slowly than if you just plugged in the power directly. [1] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-av-multiport-adapter https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-a...
- wingworks 7y ago
  I've only ever seen my laptop's battery discharge while plugged in via one of those USB-C hubs which allow PD "pass-through". But have yet to find one that passes all the power through.
  - TorKlingberg 7y ago
    The adapter claims some of the power for itself and downstream USB devices. I think it has to reserve power statically, so it's always claiming 5W or so.
- aaron_m04 7y ago
  My charger is an Apple product; it was the lowest-price charger they had available ($73 after tax). Two components: * charging block * male USB A to male USB C cable EDIT: I just clicked your link; no I'm not using that. The cable is plugged into the charging block on one end and the laptop on the other end.

hombre_fatal 7y ago

Are you using the smaller Macbook-vanilla charger or something? I game on my Macbook Pro + two monitors without discharge unless I accidentally use my girlfriend's OG Macbook charger instead of the Pro's charger that's twice the brick. And it can definitely handle Civ 6 (2017 and 2019 MBP).

saagarjha 7y ago
I believe some of the MacBook Pros ship with chargers that cannot power them when running at full tilt. (Interestingly, I believe the original iPad Pro did as well.)
- dalemyers 7y ago
  Yup. I've got last years Macbook Pro, fully specced, and when I run lots of compilations in Xcode the battery steadily drains. I ran an intense script overnight a month or two ago and when I got back in the morning my battery was down to just a few percent. Thankfully the script finished just after that so I got incredibly lucky that it didn't run out all the way and lose all the progress.
  - kartickv 7y ago
    Funnily, the base model is unlikely to have this problem, which makes it a better laptop (at least in this case) for cheaper. Your script won't stop and lose progress.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  That was the case for my rMBP 2012. Though it was only when running a game and battery discharged very slowly, so was not really an issue, at least for me.
rpastuszak 7y ago
Not sure about the parent, but my friend an I had exactly the same issue, both of us are on 16inch MBP 2020 (Civ 6 on Steam). Incredibly annoying once your laptop suddenly slows down and dies after 5h of gameplay. How is this even acceptable? Regardless whether it's a $400 or $3k laptop, I'd expect it to work when charging. I'm two apps (photoshop, lightroom) away from switching to Linux.

serf 7y ago

this kind of behavior would warrant a return from me. do you consider that to be a faulty behavior, or just par-for-the-course of heavy workloads on mobile platforms? i'd hate for that to be the new norm, I use the hell out of my mobile computers, I don't need them draining before I even unplug.

knodi123 7y ago
oh, actually it was my fault. I have an air charger and a pro charger, and it turns out they're not interchangeable. The pro charger is, like, 30% bigger, and the laptop battery will not discharge while I'm using that one. My laptop is one of the older magsafe ones, so the people talking about USB-C might be a YMMV kind of thing.