87 Watt Charger Listed as 60 Watts

[xb2003]

I have a 2016 MacBook Pro 15 with the 2.7 and the 455. I noticed in System Information that my charger is listed as 60 Watts. I have a genuine Apple 87 Watt charger, but the USB C charging cable is an Amazon one.

I'm not too worried about that.. but I was playing Cities: Skylines for about 3 hours earlier when all of the sudden my frame rate tanked. I opened Power Gadget and noticed my computer had throttled to 1 GHz because the battery was dead. My thermals were right around 80 C, so it wasn't a dermal throttle.

I know these machines can experience power throttling.. but this doesn't seem expected to me.

Has anyone else experienced this? I found one short reddit post on this, but that's it.

Thanks.

 

[Trey M]

It’s likely that your cable does not support 100W charging (capped at 60). The Apple USB-C charging cable is actually your best option for the sole purpose of charging.

 

[cynics]

Look for a high quality certified Thunderbolt 3 cable (it will list 100w charging) on Amazon if you aren't going to get the OEM. I've used a few of them and never had an issue.

 

[xb2003]

Well I went and bought an OEM Apple Charge cable and it solved the issue, so thanks for the heads up.

On a side note, is there like a micro controller or something in the cable that makes this possible? Because the cable itself can't dictate power transfer.. somehow the Mac is detecting it's not an Apple cable and choosing to lower its draw.

 

[NoBoMac]

On a side note, is there like a micro controller or something in the cable that makes this possible?

Yes there is. USB standard calls it an eMarker chip. Basically dictates what the cable is capable of. So, need to read carefully when buying a cable.

 

[xb2003]

Yes there is. USB standard calls it an eMarker chip. Basically dictates what the cable is capable of. So, need to read carefully when buying a cable.

Gotcha, thank you