Very interesting. I'm hoping to to do what dgatwood said to do (and you might be already doing this) and have the thunderbolt 3 hub plugged into one usb-c and the factory 96 watt power source plugged into a different one. I'm waiting for the ok form my boss to get one but hopefully I'll be able to get one very soon and test it out a couple different ways.
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2019 MacBook Pro Losing battery while streaming.
Very interesting. I'm hoping to to do what dgatwood said to do (and you might be already doing this) and have the thunderbolt 3 hub plugged into one usb-c and the factory 96 watt power source plugged into a different one. I'm waiting for the ok form my boss to get one but hopefully I'll be able to get one very soon and test it out a couple different ways.
Very interesting. I'm hoping to to do what dgatwood said to do (and you might be already doing this) and have the thunderbolt 3 hub plugged into one usb-c and the factory 96 watt power source plugged into a different one. I'm waiting for the ok form my boss to get one but hopefully I'll be able to get one very soon and test it out a couple different ways.
The dock should be able to draw power from the computer, no? If not, that's a terrible design. :-/ Or are you using it to power some ultra-power-hungry peripheral?
Lawrence_SoCal
Active Member
Thank Intel and the joy of the poorly done Thunderbolt 3 'standard'.. utter mess for years. So beware assumptions as TB3 chipsets changed over the years and have different capabilities (in resilience/stability) but means that 3rd party vendors have to make assumptions that may not always match the situation. And then in the PC world, there are those that went beyond the standard spec in terms of power (like Dell with the engineering class workstation laptops needing more than 100W from the dockThe dock should be able to draw power from the computer, no? If not, that's a terrible design.
But in general, if Dock is powered, and laptop powered via dock, no, the dock should not then be able to pull extra power from laptop battery. Issue is PEBKAC. simply get a more powerful power adapter in such a situation to drive laptop at required power up to make possible from dock (which varies by vendor/make/model... and if laptop power draw exceeds dock support, then one may need 2 power adapters, 1 to plug power direct into laptop and the other for the dock)
Thank Intel and the joy of the poorly done Thunderbolt 3 'standard'.. utter mess for years. So beware assumptions as TB3 chipsets changed over the years and have different capabilities (in resilience/stability) but means that 3rd party vendors have to make assumptions that may not always match the situation. And then in the PC world, there are those that went beyond the standard spec in terms of power (like Dell with the engineering class workstation laptops needing more than 100W from the dock
But in general, if Dock is powered, and laptop powered via dock, no, the dock should not then be able to pull extra power from laptop battery. Issue is PEBKAC. simply get a more powerful power adapter in such a situation to drive laptop at required power up to make possible from dock (which varies by vendor/make/model... and if laptop power draw exceeds dock support, then one may need 2 power adapters, 1 to plug power direct into laptop and the other for the dock)
It's not the dock drawing power from the laptop in this case. The dock only provides 60W of charging power, but OBS running on a MBP causes the computer itself to draw considerably more than 60W (or at least it does for mine).
It's not the dock drawing power from the laptop in this case. The dock only provides 60W of charging power, but OBS running on a MBP causes the computer itself to draw considerably more than 60W (or at least it does for mine).
Kinda depends on whether he has theOWC TB3 "hub" or the TB3 "dock". The Dock provides 85 watts.
Easy for him to check the power coming in using coconut battery.
Ok so I finally got the ok to buy one and it came today. I ended up getting the OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock. With the 14 ports. I'm running a stress test right now that consists of live-streaming to YouTube from OBS with an external monitor. Streaming 1080 @ 60fps and 6000kbps. Also using studio mode and recording onto my desktop just because. As for the dock, I have 3 Magewell capture cards plugged in along with a laptop cooling fan plugged in as well. I've been streaming for about 30 minutes and the overall charge has gone UP about 2-3 percent. So that's really good! OBS is also using far less CPU percentage as well. Only like 90-110 vs the 300s like before. coconut battery says it's charging with about 9 watts. So as of right now, I think this dock is the ticket! I appreciate everyone's help and input. I'll keep running this for awhile just to make sure. I'll also note anything else and let you all know.
One side note is I contacted apple in regards to my Mac battery only being able to charge up to 80% of it's overall capacity and they told me once it drops below 80%, they'll replace it free with AppleCare. So that's good to know. I think I might just keep doing what I'm doing and once it drops another percent in overall capacity, I'll take it in to get replaced.
Anything that I might have missed? Just let me know. Thanks again!
*edit*
Oh I also answered the question of whether I could use my factory charger in one port and not have the dock charge via the other port. It works. So the dock is only powering the capture cards and sending signal. Not powering the Mac too. So that's icing on the cake.
One side note is I contacted apple in regards to my Mac battery only being able to charge up to 80% of it's overall capacity and they told me once it drops below 80%, they'll replace it free with AppleCare. So that's good to know. I think I might just keep doing what I'm doing and once it drops another percent in overall capacity, I'll take it in to get replaced.
Anything that I might have missed? Just let me know. Thanks again!
*edit*
Oh I also answered the question of whether I could use my factory charger in one port and not have the dock charge via the other port. It works. So the dock is only powering the capture cards and sending signal. Not powering the Mac too. So that's icing on the cake.
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glad that's working! You definitely have a significant stress case on that setup...impressive!Ok so I finally got the ok to buy one and it came today. I ended up getting the OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock. With the 14 ports. I'm running a stress test right now that consists of live-streaming to YouTube from OBS with an external monitor. Streaming 1080 @ 60fps and 6000kbps. Also using studio mode and recording onto my desktop just because. As for the dock, I have 3 Magewell capture cards plugged in along with a laptop cooling fan plugged in as well. I've been streaming for about 30 minutes and the overall charge has gone UP about 2-3 percent. So that's really good! OBS is also using far less CPU percentage as well. Only like 90-110 vs the 300s like before. coconut battery says it's charging with about 9 watts. So as of right now, I think this dock is the ticket! I appreciate everyone's help and input. I'll keep running this for awhile just to make sure. I'll also note anything else and let you all know.
One side note is I contacted apple in regards to my Mac battery only being able to charge up to 80% of it's overall capacity and they told me once it drops below 80%, they'll replace it free with AppleCare. So that's good to know. I think I might just keep doing what I'm doing and once it drops another percent in overall capacity, I'll take it in to get replaced.
Anything that I might have missed? Just let me know. Thanks again!
*edit*
Oh I also answered the question of whether I could use my factory charger in one port and not have the dock charge via the other port. It works. So the dock is only powering the capture cards and sending signal. Not powering the Mac too. So that's icing on the cake.
I Agree. Although I should never have to do a show with that extensive of a set up like I listed above, I wanted a good test to make sure it was going to work. I'm doing some research on how to minimize the work load. Sometimes I can get away with using our blackmagic switcher and only need one capture card, but other times with what the client wants, I can't have that luxury.glad that's working! You definitely have a significant stress case on that setup...impressive!
Breadcrumbs85
New Member
Im running the same spec as Wreckords. Been streaming for months with no issue, but following a recent OSX and OBS update, now suddently im losing battery while streaming, roughly 10% an hour as mentioned by others. My iStat menu says "not charging" while streaming but after I raid out and close OBS, the menu shows a time to full charge which replaces the "not charging" text.
So it does seem to be related to OBS being open. But I honestly couldnt tell you how or why an app would have the ability to tell the laptop to not charge. Very odd.
So it does seem to be related to OBS being open. But I honestly couldnt tell you how or why an app would have the ability to tell the laptop to not charge. Very odd.
Breadcrumbs85
New Member
Potential solution pending tomorrows stream :P
(TLDR : OBS and Device power consumption = more than laptop charger provide. So power USB hubs and devices separately with device linked bellow.)
OK so after a bit of troubleshooting, I realised the devices plugged in (Brio Webcam, Mic and Elgato HD60s+) where drawing enough watts in combination with OBS's power consumption (which seems to be higher for me since 28. released) to stray over the 94 watts the laptop charger can supply. Hence it starts scavenging power from the battery.
To combat this I have plugged the USB hub with my mic and webcam in with a 20 watt apple charger to provide power for those two devices and the hub itself which is doing the ethernet also, the hubs pass-through power port will power the hub and devices and Apples website confirmed that the laptop will look for the port providing the most power and ignore other powered connections. This should be sufficient based on my guestimate that each USB device is drawing 900ma at 5v and the hub itself handling data and ethernet would draw something similar. This resulted in the power draw on the battery being less whilst streaming, which seems to confirm my theory.
However there was still draw on the battery due to the capture device, which means I couldn't do special event streams lasting longer than 8-9 hours, and I still feel that using battery power in conjunction with the power from the wall is cycling the battery and not good for it's lifespan or performance. So for the capture device which is the other side of the room I have purchased and active USB extension :
and a USB to barrel jack cable for its power :
This setup seems to provide three advantages ;
(TLDR : OBS and Device power consumption = more than laptop charger provide. So power USB hubs and devices separately with device linked bellow.)
OK so after a bit of troubleshooting, I realised the devices plugged in (Brio Webcam, Mic and Elgato HD60s+) where drawing enough watts in combination with OBS's power consumption (which seems to be higher for me since 28. released) to stray over the 94 watts the laptop charger can supply. Hence it starts scavenging power from the battery.
To combat this I have plugged the USB hub with my mic and webcam in with a 20 watt apple charger to provide power for those two devices and the hub itself which is doing the ethernet also, the hubs pass-through power port will power the hub and devices and Apples website confirmed that the laptop will look for the port providing the most power and ignore other powered connections. This should be sufficient based on my guestimate that each USB device is drawing 900ma at 5v and the hub itself handling data and ethernet would draw something similar. This resulted in the power draw on the battery being less whilst streaming, which seems to confirm my theory.
However there was still draw on the battery due to the capture device, which means I couldn't do special event streams lasting longer than 8-9 hours, and I still feel that using battery power in conjunction with the power from the wall is cycling the battery and not good for it's lifespan or performance. So for the capture device which is the other side of the room I have purchased and active USB extension :
and a USB to barrel jack cable for its power :
This setup seems to provide three advantages ;
The capture card is powered even when its not plugged into the laptop, so on non-stream days the passthrough of the capture card works fine. So I can game normally without needing a spare USB power source for the capture card.
This also powers the device when its plugged into the laptop which should stop power draw. This means I should only need to power the laptop itself to run OBS and encode and upload my stream. I cant see any way that OBS could be using more than the 94 watts the laptop charger provides.
The extender comes with a VERY long cable which can be handy for setups like mine where the console and TV and capture device are the other side of the room. This active extension both powers the device and provides a cable long enough to reach where my laptop is when I stream. Which is great as a decent length USB C to C had its own cost which can be avoided with this device.
So as mentioned I will be streaming tomorrow to test this setup and will aim to update if there are any issues.Breadcrumbs85
New Member
I have been experimenting with using a different encoder (in OBS 28.0.2) for recording the stream and uploading it. I use x264 for the stream as it supports constant bitrate which is required by Twitch. But i'm using the "Apple VT H264 Hardware Encoder" to record with a bitrate of 10,000 so as to not pressure the encoder and cause too much work for it which might draw too much power in an off itself.
Doing so allowed me to get my battery consumption down to 1% per 16 minutes of streaming and recording at the same time. Which is improved from 7 minutes per 1% of battery whilst playing the withcher 3 which has alot of camera movement because its 3rd person.
However it does mean the recordings of my stream are a few GB larger due to the larger bitrate on the encoder making the recording. But storage is a variable I can control easier than the battery usage of OBS currently on Macbook Pro/OSX
Doing so allowed me to get my battery consumption down to 1% per 16 minutes of streaming and recording at the same time. Which is improved from 7 minutes per 1% of battery whilst playing the withcher 3 which has alot of camera movement because its 3rd person.
However it does mean the recordings of my stream are a few GB larger due to the larger bitrate on the encoder making the recording. But storage is a variable I can control easier than the battery usage of OBS currently on Macbook Pro/OSX