Battery not Charging during folding.

[TomMyers]

This is not software dependent (other than it occurs with software that uses high CPU power), but it DOES affect folding@home.

I found issue as I used my computer on battery until it was at 6%. I plugged it in and went to bed with Folding@home set to folding on full when plugged in. When I came back about 12 hrs later I found the battery was at 4%. After changing cable and still having issues. I remembered I was running Folding@home on full and just for kicks I stopped it. Immediately the battery started charging.

With my last notebook (15-inch Tom MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), this. was never an issue. I would often use my computer during the day on battery, then plug it in at night when it would charge and also fold.

Also of note,running Folding@home at it’s “Medium CPU” setting where the activity monitor shows about 50% CPU usage I still get a negative mA value but it drops to a smaller negative number. Switching to light I finally get about a mA value of about 264

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, 32 GB 2667 MHz DDR4, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

We may need to have an option to ask folding to not fold if battery is less than say 90% in addition to being plugged in.

[bruce]

I'm not too hopeful that your enhancement suggesting would be implemented even if formally suggested [urlhttps://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-issues/issues here.

FAH features like "medium CPU" is one of a very limited number of options in WebClient and various hardware combinations will take it to mean a variety of things, depending on you hardware. A wider variety of choices is available if you use FAHControl and you're more likely to find a combination that suits your specific needs -- or maybe there is a heavy duty charger available for your system.

[JimboPalmer]

You may wish to read the specs on your current charger, Apple sells a 96 watt version.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX0J ... 5%252B45d4

[rwh202]

Is this with the new adapter for the 16 inch?
The 16 inch has a 96 W one, whereas 15 shipped with 87 W. However, I doubt the CPU itself could draw that much power continually anyway.

[bruce]

However, I doubt the CPU itself could draw that much power continually anyway.

FAH is designed to fold as fast as your hardware will allow. If your battery charge isn't charging, then your system is using more power thant the charger is putting out. Only the excess will be used to charge the battery. Your doubts are not substantiated with facts.

[foldy]

Still seems bad design by Apple if the power supply cannot power the system and charge the battery at the same time.

[MeeLee]

Same is true for cellphones on boinc.
My recommendation?
Reduce the amount of cores you're folding on, and make sure your laptop is well ventilated. That would at least prevent any fan from running 100% sapping even more power.

[JimboPalmer]

As I read this, USB-C only supports up to 100 watts and Apple delivers 96. Perhaps they chose the wrong connector.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#PD

[Joe_H]

Still seems bad design by Apple if the power supply cannot power the system and charge the battery at the same time.

The power adapter supplied by Apple with the 96 W USB-C charging cable for the 16" MacBook Pro will supply enough power to both run the CPU and charge the system. The i9 CPU is rated at 45 W. What the OP did not mention in his configuration information is that the laptop also has a discrete AMD Radeon 5500M, if that is active the laptop will limit power usage to the maximum delivered by the power adapter. Power to charge the battery might not be available in this case as the 5500M is rated at up to 85 TDP.

This all assumes the correct USB-C charging cord is being used. If instead one rated for 45 or 60 W is used, the maximum power delivered will be limited by the cord to that amount even when connected to a 96 W supply.

[bruce]

My Android phone uses a USB-C cable. I generally charge it overnight so I don't particularly care how fast it charges ... but the phone does bring up a warning when I use a low-power wall charger, warning me that I should use the charger that came with the phone. Sounds like the same sort of issue.