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Aftermarket Power Supply

w00t951

w00t951

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 6, 2009
1,834
53
Pittsburgh, PA
The 2008 Macbook Pro consumed slightly more power than the power brick could output, so the battery discharged a bit while playing games.

The 2011 Macbook Pro consumes far more power than the power brick can output, making the battery drain to the point of charging after an hour of gaming.

Is there an aftermarket power supply that is reliable and of good quality that will supply more than 85W of power? Thanks.
 
I'm not sure it would help, even if you could find one. MagSafe adapters and Macs are designed to control how much charge flows to the battery. Even if you found a more powerful adapter, it most likely would get throttled, so you'd end up with no benefit over the 85W adapter. I wouldn't trust an adapter that didn't come from Apple.
 
Odd, i've done some pretty big stuff on these machines in my time ...
Never had this problem? Maybe Australian power supplies are better :p
 
mulo said:
2011 MBP easily eats 100W apple should make a 120W power supply...
Click to expand...

I'm actually very dissapointed with this. I don't like my battery draining everytime I game but I really be very angry if the solution were to underclock the gfx card with a firmware update.

I really want a 120W supply for my MBP.
 
I have an early 2011 MBP and I've never had an issue with the battery draining while gaming with the power adapter plugged in.
 
wct097 said:
I have an early 2011 MBP and I've never had an issue with the battery draining while gaming with the power adapter plugged in.
Click to expand...
It depends on the game, as some are more resource-intensive than others. It can happen.
 
GGJstudios said:
It depends on the game, as some are more resource-intensive than others. It can happen.
Click to expand...

That seems like a design flaw if true. Again, I've not seen it in Diablo, WoW, or when running multiple VMs at the same time. In my case, games are running off of the HDD which means my laptop is powering both the SSD & HDD for the duration of the game.
 
wct097 said:
That seems like a design flaw if true.
Click to expand...
No, it's the way it's designed. While some may disagree with the design, it's not a flaw.

It's normal for your MBP to draw power from both AC and battery during periods of extreme demand, such as gaming or other multimedia operations. This can cause your battery to stop charging or even drain. Read the AC POWER section of the following link. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:
 
A design flaw doesn't have to be unintentional to be considered a design flaw.

I did a quick test to see if I could replicate this issue, and I was able to do so. With WoW, Diablo, a VM, and a whole bunch of terminal "yes >/dev/null &" commands going, I show a 0.7 watt battery usage while plugged in.

You learn something new every day, or so they say...
 
What is the wattage of the power supply on the retina MacBook Pro? It has a much larger battery than the non-retina MacBook Pro.

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wct097 said:
A design flaw doesn't have to be unintentional to be considered a design flaw.

I did a quick test to see if I could replicate this issue, and I was able to do so. With WoW, Diablo, a VM, and a whole bunch of terminal "yes >/dev/null &" commands going, I show a 0.7 watt battery usage while plugged in.

You learn something new every day, or so they say...
Click to expand...

It's not a flaw if it was designed that way. It would just be a bad design choice.
 
Icy1007 said:
It's not a flaw if it was designed that way. It would just be a bad design choice.
Click to expand...

I counter that a bad design and a design flaw are semantically the same thing. An intentional design can be a flaw, in my book.
 
Even if a knock-off is available, Apple's power adapters are so cleanly and elegantly engineered that I won't want the knock-off. At least based on their iPhone chargers.


As for battery drain while plugged in, that seems odd. Most power management systems shouldn't let it dip below 95%. Li-ion/poly often needs this mechanism (shuts off, then recharges again).
 
GGJstudios said:
Read post #3. Even if you found one, it wouldn't help.
Click to expand...

Yep, you're right on your post, but I was thinking maybe Apple would care some and launch a 120W supply or something capable of powering my MBP enough.

BTW I don't plan on buying any third party power accesories for my machine.:rolleyes:
 
ivoruest said:
Yep, you're right on your post, but I was thinking maybe Apple would care some and launch a 120W supply or something capable of powering my MBP enough.
Click to expand...
It doesn't look like that would happen anytime soon, considering they just released the RMBP with an 85w power adapter.
 
mulo said:
2011 MBP easily eats 100W apple should make a 120W power supply...
Click to expand...

Absolutely, my 2014 MBP Retina will drain the battery from 100% to 1% in about 6-8 hours of gaming (granted, the GPU is overclocked...) Luckily at this point, the GPU overclock and CPU turbo boosts throttle back and it maintains charge around 2-4%. I've tested this numerous time both with intense gaming under Windows 7, 8.1, and 10, as well as leaving it on overnight running an intense scene. I wish I could find a knockoff adaptor higher than 85W (I know knockoffs exist, I've seen them for sale and in real life, but they're all 85W).
 
It's not a design flaw and not a bad choice, if the other option is killing your battery in less than a year (windows laptops anyone??). It seems to me the only people making bad choices are those of you choosing to run denmanding games on a laptop plugged in for more than 8 hours at a time when a desktop or a console is the correct tool for the job.
 
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