Very High CPU Usage on Macbook Pro - Battery Drains Extremely Fast

P

Peter Z

New Member
I am using OBS to transfer VHS movies to the local hard drive on a 2015 Macbook Pro.
Once the Recording commences, the Macbook Fan starts to run very Loud.
NOTE, the Macbook Pro is always plugged into an electrical power source as well, and the Battery
starts off at 100%.
During the recording the Battery life continues to Drain extremely fast, even while the Macbook
is plugged in.
After about 2 hours of recording, the battery is Dead, and the Macbook shuts down in the middle of
the recording.
NOTE, there is NO other Apps running on the Macbook during this time.
So why is OBS causing such extremely high work load on my Macbook.
 
L

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
real-time video encoding is VERY computationally demanding. And a 2015 notebook CPU is both old and thermally throttled
As for draining battery... not sure if inadequate power supply or defective system design. There are other threads in this forum on macbook battery drain when plugged in, you might want to check them out

A contributing issue may be that your OBS settings are too high (demanding) for system. You ignored the pinned post in this forum about posting an OBS log, so no way for any of us to check for you.

Also, no other running apps does NOT necessarily mean there aren't unnecessary background processes (iCloud or similar sync, etc) running. Optimizing your Operating System as it may be (probably) under-powered for what you are asking it to do, is advisable. Such settings / details are not captured in the OBS log, and what to do... depends.. sorry
 
P

Peter Z

New Member
here are the logs:

Thanks for the feedback.

RE: about OBS settings too high. I have the 'output' set to 'hight quality, Medium File Size'. which is the Lowest quality.
RE: about no other Apps running. I checked and there are NO Background processes running.
RE: about power supply. the power supply is totally fine. It charges my Macbook fairly fast.

thanks again.
 
L

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Peter Z said:
RE: about power supply. the power supply is totally fine. It charges my Macbook fairly fast.
Click to expand...
that it charges Macbook normally is NOT the question/comment. the issue is how much wattage is system consuming, and how much can that adapter (and the macbook's power sub-system process) at maximum. For example, lets say a 60W charger (making these #s up) but consuming 90W at full tilt. in that case, battery drains. The question is
1. Will system use a higher wattage charger? someone more knowledgeable than I on your specific model would need to comment, or you need to do your own research. My recollection (which could easily be wrong) is that other folks got higher W charger and that solved the issue of battery drain. vague.. back of brain recollection.. .not sure which Mac model, I recall discussion of needing to use a dock, with higher W charger as no native higher W charger??? sorry.. not my area of expertise
 
L

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
I'd start with the auto-config wizard and use its settings as a starting point. I believe you (or someone on your system) had to change the OBS Studio to 60 fps (frames per second) as that is NOT a default. Stick with 30fps for now
Looks like you created 3 video input sources, probably by mistake?? if yes, delete the 2 erroneous video input sources
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top