Apple Laptop charging thermally dependent?

[Quicksilver867]

Hello all-

I've noticed that whenever I plug in my charger while playing a game (Left 4 Dead 2, Minecraft (heh heh)) the battery status will remain in "Not Charging" mode until the game is over. I found this kinda strange- my current i7 quad machine behaves like this, but my previous dual core one did not.

Is the charging process in Macbooks/Macbook Pros thermally dependent? Because I know it is a toasty process itself.

Post your thoughts...

 

[GGJstudios]

No, it's not thermally dependent. Under heavy workloads, such as playing some games, your Mac draws more power than is available from AC power alone. During those times, it will not have enough power to charge the battery and may even draw power from the battery in addition to AC power. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

 

[Intell]

My guess is that the game takes so much power, the power brick can't charge the battery and power the game at the same time.

 

[Quicksilver867]

No, it's not thermally dependent. Under heavy workloads, such as playing some games, your Mac draws more power than is available from AC power alone. During those times, it will not have enough power to charge the battery and may even draw power from the battery in addition to AC power. This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

Dunno why I didn't think of this. EE major and I didn't think of that...don't tell anyone. Oh wait. But cool, it does make sense that that would happen.

 

[Manacit]

According to Anandtech the 2011 2.3 will pull a peak 93.2W during HL2. The supplied power brick from Apple only supplies 85W, so the other 8.2W come from the battery. Of course this means that the battery will actually drain a bit (I've seen 3% gone during long gaming sessions). It's really not a big deal all things considered, you'd need to have the machine drawing peak power for a long time for it to actually drain the battery any meaningful amount.


Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/14

The previous machines didn't pull anywhere near this much power at load (70% less under cinebench and 45% less under HL2), which is why it hasn't been an issue until now.