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gleep52
Contributor
Contributor

When running my windows 10 VM in Fusion 11, My 15" 2015 MBP says "Not charging..." unless I pause the VM, or shut it down.

I worked with Apple tech support today and we reset the SMC and NVRAM as a precaution.  Their next step was for me to erase MacOS and start over from scratch, which I just did tonight, and the only thing I have installed is my Windows 10 VM I use for gaming.  I play Diablo 3 on it, and other stuff - it works great - I'm actually impressed my gpu can handle it, but it's smooth and wonderful in the VM.  But sadly, my battery dies very slowly if the VM has a game open.  If a game is NOT open, the battery will charge and not charge on and off, but ultimately goes up, not down.  With a game open, it constantly says "Not Charging" and goes down over the course of a few hours before it dies. 

I wasn't paying attention last night after installing the Fusion 11 trial, and went to bed with my D3 game running - which drained my battery completely.  I woke up and saw my mac had crashed and was like WTF?  Now I realize that after hours of D3 running, it must have completely drained the battery.  Is this a bug with Fusion 11?  I never had issues with 8.5, but upgraded to the Fusion 11 trial so my gaming PC VM could run... I love the speed improvements overall in Fusion 11, just not sure if it's my mac, or Fusion that's causing the slow battery drain while plugged in, and eventually, failure.  I'm certain with the fresh install of Mojave 14.5 and no other software yet - that this is not a conflict with other software, but either entirely Fusion 11's bug, or perhaps something on my mac is failing.

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ColoradoMarmot
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So this isn't a Fusion issue, well not directly.  I've seen it before with other CPU/GPU intensive applications, particularly on older machines.  Encoding video is another common use case.

There's basically two causes:

First, using a third-party, counterfeit, undersized, or failing power supply, which causes less power to be delivered than the machine consumes.  Make sure you're using a real Apple 85w supply with that machine, and check the mag-safe connector.  If you see black there, from arcing, power off the machine and use a pencil eraser to clean the connections on both the supply and the computer.  Also check to make sure there's nothing stuck in the magnetic latch on the computer - my mom had a staple stuck in there that was causing intermittent connections.  Likewise, if the cord on the supply is bent, bulged, etc (common if you use the wings), try getting a new power supply.

Second, a machine that overheats.  The root cause here is  Apple trying to stuff too much hardware into too thin a case, but made worse by dirty/failed/clogged fans (open the case and use canned air to clean), or using aftermarket software to control fan speeds.  Running with the lid closed, or putting the machine on a heat-absorbing surface (e.g. a couch) *absolutely* causes overheating, which will throttle charging.  Best option is to put the machine up on a stand, blow a fan on it, and use with the lid open.

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etank52
Contributor
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I THOUGHT I saw it happen when I was doing some photoshop work too - it seems tied to the GPU more than the CPU.  At least in my humble testing I've done.

I have a cpu cooler I use - and a big AC unit that blows right on my back (thus hitting my mac too).  I've cleaned it recently and found hardly NO dust in there - I don't use it on a couch or messy areas - no pets, etc.  So I don't think it's over heating...

I have two genuine Apple 85W power adapters and it does it with both.  I also have an after market one rated for 115W that has a magsafe 2 adapter on it - and it behaves the same way - it just doesn't get enough wattage.

If I use some battery utilities I can see the watts in use while charging.  When this happens, the watts to charge my laptop are hovering around 1.2 to 10 watts.  When I stop the CPU/GPU activity - it bumps up to 20-48 watts.  Is there a "controller" in the mac that could go bad that controls the charging voltage/wattage maybe?

EDIT:  This is gleep52 - logged in with wrong account (work vs home)

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ColoradoMarmot
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Champion

Hmmm....did you check the magsafe socket on the computer to make sure its not corroded?  Short of a hardware problem (as you noted), that's about the only other thing I can think of.

Oh, one other idea - do you have an external monitor connected?  I wonder if a combination of 4K monitor + GPU use is sort of a perfect storm.

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etank52
Contributor
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Magsafe looks ok to me - all shiny still.  I cleaned it with an eraser and a qtip to make sure though.

I've tried it with and without monitors.  Same situation both ways.

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