X-Plane Causing MacBook Pro Battery to discharge.

[brucie1dog]

I've  noticed the last few days that when I am flying my MacBook Pro battery is slowly discharging even though it is receiving power from the power adapter.

X-Plane is the only application that this happens with. As soon as I quit X-Plane the Battery level builds back up. Any idea what may be causing this?

Andy

[Ben Russell]

X-Plane is causing maximum power draw which exceeds what the wall adapter can supply over that puny cable. 

To supplement the system needs it draws from the battery.

Nothin but clever engineering.

 

[brucie1dog]

Hi Ben,

I wonder why it just started doing this 3 weeks ago? Do the Sky Maxx Pro upgrades have anything to do with this? The lowest the battery has gotten is down to 69%. But concerned if I did a 16 hour flight it would just drag the battery down to 0 and shut X-Plane down.

 

Andy

Edited July 2, 2016 by brucie1dog

[Ben Russell]

Try reducing your rendering options temporarily and see if it in turn reduces system load which will reduce power draw...

Maybe your system is due for a dust clean?

[brucie1dog]

Ben,

I just came back from the repair center. They will  run full diagnostics.  We'll see what they say. If they come back with an I don't know then I'll reduce the rendering. It really is a clean machine.  I keep on praying I don't have to start using a desktop to use X-Plane. The MacBook Pro I am using X-Plane on is the most powerful laptop Apple makes.

 

Thank you for all your help.

Andy

Edited July 2, 2016 by brucie1dog
typo

[Jose Almeida]

I also use a MacBook Pro, not the most recent one, and x-plane does not drain my battery when it is connected to the mains, but I notice it uses a lot of power because the machine heats up; in order to keep the temperature under control, I have rigged a base to lay it on, that allows ventilation from underneath.

[brucie1dog]

Jose,

I am waiting on the repair shop to see if they find anything wrong. I've been using g X-Plane since August 2014 on this computer  and the power/battery issue never occurred until a month ago.  In fact I have been using X-Plane since V8 on MacBook Pro or whatever they were called previously and never had this issue occur. The only thing I can think of that's different in the last month or so is the upgrades of SkyMaxx. But I wouldn't think that would cause a problem because SkyMaxx seems to be running more efficient now.

Andy

[Defiance_co]

Andy,

A nephew of mine had is laptop battery go south two month ago

Got a quality replacement, been fine since, i think his battery wasn't charging or very slowly

Maybe similar to your problem

Also, x-plane really really pulls out whatever a cpu and gpu have to offer, amazing how much 'juice' it wants to live on lol

Tony

[brucie1dog]

Hi Tony,

The repair shop checked the battery and  and charger unit and tested perfect. Hope to hear within the next few hours if they are able to find any obvious problems.

[brucie1dog]

After replacing the logic board twice on this MacBook Pro because the left USB port intermittently works and when the computer is plugged into the power source it is still continuing to draw power from the battery,  Apple submitted reports to their engineering to see if they can detect an issue with the software, saying it is unlikely it's a hardware issue. I have moved the computer to different outlets in the house as we'll as a neighbors home for testing and the results were the same. 10 to 1 Apple comes back and blames this on X-Plane for drawing too much power. Is it possible there is an issue with the El Capitan version 10.11.5 and  X-Plane? The moment I quit X-Plane the computer starts recharging the battery. The only  plugins I use are Gizmo 64 & SkyMaxx Pro .  The discharge and intermittent USB power loss generally do not occur till X-Plane has been on for an hour or two.  Doesn't occur when plane is at the gate or on the ground just when the plane is in the air. Could those plug cause me to use more power than the average user?

My computer:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)

Processor 2.8 GHZ Power boost to 4.00 GHZ

Memory 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

 Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB

Edited July 15, 2016 by brucie1dog

[brucie1dog]

I have run Prime 95 stress testing and Heaven benchmarking and the results say my MacBook Pro is perfect. Is there a possibility that SkyMaxx Pro sends it over the edge and causes it to eat the battery charge? Apple engineering hasn't been able to figure out the problem either by reading the reports they asked me to capture. Has anyone experienced this issue before?

 

Jose I do have a ventilated platform so it doesn't overheat. Some users on the X-Plane forums are recommending SMC Fam Control. I haven't used it yet.