My laptop says 100% charged when on dock, but when I plug apple adapter it shows 2% charging

[4RunnerHeaven]

Any idea why this is? My laptop just died because of it. I was hammering it ripping a blu-ray to put on my NAS for Plex, and I have never seen this. It shows 100%, and charging. But when I unplug it, it shows 3%. I have the Apple adapter in only and it shows 2-3% as well. If I plug both the apple and the dock it goes up to 100%.

The dock has been working fine charging it, but not sure why suddenly it did this. Elgato TB3 dock.

 

[Brookzy]

It's possible for the 15" MacBook Pro (I assume it's the 15" you have?) to draw more power than the charger can provide. This may be what is happening. When the battery reaches a critically low level it should in theory throttle down the components so as not to let the system shut down.

If you're hot hammering it, I assume it charges and functions okay?

 

[4RunnerHeaven]

The dock has 85w which is enough to keep it charged. On the phone with the support for the dock and they said shouldn't do that. Even with hammering it. Whats odd is the O/S is showing 100% but the App I downloaded shows it accurately at 13% now.

 

[Brookzy]

As I said, it's possible for the 15" MacBook Pro (I assume it's the 15" you have?) to draw more power than the charger can provide. Crank the CPU and GPU to maximum, have the display on relatively high brightness, and you can make it consume more than 90W.

Example: https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/827182990019149825

You could try resetting the SMC but this sounds like normal behaviour for this workflow.

 

[4RunnerHeaven]

The laptop isn't doing a thing and it's draining when on the dock. It is the 15".

Per Elgato, it is not normal behavior. Especially when it's idle. I saw it charge, then it stopped charging, charge, then stopped. The built in battery meter to High Sierra still shows 100% which is false. No idea why it's showing that when the dock is connected. See screen shot.

 

[Brookzy]

Have you tried an SMC reset? I would trust the High Sierra indicator personally.

 

[4RunnerHeaven]

Have you tried an SMC reset? I would trust the High Sierra indicator personally.

The high sierra indicator is wrong. Like I said, if I unplug the dock, it goes to whatever the other meter shows as %. If I plug it back it in goes to 100% and starts draining even though it shows 100%.

Before you login it shows the correct % of battery life. Only in the top bar after you login it's not. Makes no sense or is a bug.

 

[4RunnerHeaven]

Got my Caldigit TS3 in today, and all is well now. It keeps it charged at 100%, the O/S reads the correct reading now. The Elgato either had an issue, or the cable wasn't good/correct that came with it.

I returned it to the owner on Ebay and getting my money back. Wasn't impressed with it though compared to the Caldigit which to me is better built.

Here is a picture.