Hey guys,
It was pretty bleak discovering 1st hand the main issue with the macbook pro 2011. Over the weekend I experienced the "macbook pro drains the battery while plugged into A/C and under heavy GPU load" issue
Funny how you will never think to google for such specific issue until it happens to you, I was totally mistaken to assume that if a machine is plugged into A/C power it is good to go for *however long you want* but we are severely limited in terms of performance/productivity time on these new macbook pro 2011's
The issue is that under heavy GPU load, when the discrete GPU kicks in, the total system can (will) use more power (up to 95w) than the 85w magsafe adapter can provide, so it syphons (bad joke!) the remaining power from the battery and will eventually cause your machine to go down when the battery runs out.
When I finished up an 8 hour gig on saturday night my battery was at 5%
A V/PRAM Reset, SMC reset, sleep, wake up, restart, shut down and start it up while standing on your head, none of those suggestions work and the internet is flooded with people having this issue, some of them experience it simply watching youtube clips which is quite a sad state of affairs,
In my mind the only obvious solution to this problem is for apple to offer a 95-100W magsafe adapter but many say this will create even more issues in terms of heat dissipation - so I am lost and wondering how to handle things - from the collective voice on the forums, Apple's take on things is that "this is normal and built into the design" Whoa!! well that's a major fail for all VJ's, 3D renderers, gamers and youtube addicts alike.
I regularly have gigs that last 10 hours and one can forgot about running multiple graphics apps on one machine, like vdmx and madmapper in conjunction, those 2 apps simply started up and not even doing any major processing cause the batter drain to start after a short while....
Any one else experienced this? How are you coping, is there a support group or alternatively a petition been started to send to the almighty Apple? I've tried turning off my wireless, bluetooth, dimming the display, turning off the backlit keys, but as soon as that discrete GPU gets going, it's hello battery time!
Thanks
W.