Macbook pro (not charging) problem

Question

Hi i am new to this community
I know a similar post has been made before but I feel my case is a little weird and would like to know if there's anyone else out there facing the same thing.  So basically the problem is whenever i do anything even remotely graphic intensive, the laptop would say (not charging) and the orange light on the charger turnds green. Like say i watch a youtube video or a high def trailer from www.gametrailers.com, it immediately says not charging for the duration of the video. It 100% happens while gaming without fail even before the laptop starts to rev up.
Does anyone else have this problem?
I have given it to the apple care 3 times and had my battery changed, software updated and the third time in a different place they said this was 'normal'. NORMAL? how can it be normal for a latop to not be able to get charged while doing anything its supposed to be used for. I have never in my life faced this problem while running highly intensive graphic games in much cheaper laptops. Never really expected this problem to come from such a premium brand and at a such a steep price. Especially since they arent even admitting its a problem...

Answer 1

You have exactly the same problem that has been discussed in an endless thread here previously. It has been true of all MBPs since the first ones in 2006 that if pressed to the wall, they could require more power than their AC adapters can supply. Under those circumstances, the first thing to happen is that battery charging ceases (if it was going on in the first place) and the second thing that happens, if the machine's power demand is high enough, is that the battery is drawn upon to make up the deficit. So with any MBP, there is the possibility that under extremely heavy load, the battery won't be charged or will actually be depleted while the AC adapter remains connected.
Very few users ever ran into this with early MBPs, because it was hard to push them to the point of needing more power than their 85W adapters provided. It has become all too common in the 2011 models, with their enormously powerful (and enormously power-hungry) discrete GPUs and the expectation of many users that they will be able to use a notebook for everything they used to do on large desktop computers. I suspect (and this is purely my own hypothesis) that Apple has unintentionally compounded the problem with the automatic GPU switching in recent 15" and 17" MBPs, causing the discrete GPU to be invoked automatically when it isn't really needed and the integrated graphics would suffice, such as when browsing the web. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the problem only arises in the 2011 models when the discrete GPU is in use, so if you turn off automatic switching and limit yourself to the integrated graphics, you may be able to put an end to it, or at least limit its occurrence to times when you're willing and able to cope with it. But it probably does mean that you won't be able to place graphically-intensive 3D action games around the clock without running your battery down, and will need to take breaks of several hours to recharge from time to time.
In other words, it IS normal, though it's also unfortunate.
You might well wonder why Apple doesn't just provide a larger, higher-capacity AC adapter, and the only answer I can suggest (speaking for myself of course, and not for Apple) is that it might not be possible for the MBP in its existing case design to dissipate the additional heat that would be generated by continuing to charge the battery at times of extreme CPU and GPU activity.