MacBook charging extremely slowly, after using 3rd party USB-C charger

batterychargingmacbook prousb

I have a 16" 2019 MacBook Pro.

A few days ago, I didn't have my MacBook charger on hand. After a quick internet research of whether or not it works, I borrowed my wife's DELL XPS charger (USB-C, 130W I believe). My MacBook charged fine with it.

A few days later, I noticed that my MacBook is charging very slowly (with my Apple 96W charger). I reset the SMC, rebooted, tried a different wall outlet, installed all system upgrades. No luck. Charge speed is around 1% point every 20 minutes with all apps closed. When I run a computing intense task (having a lot of Google Chrome tabs open, or compiling code), the battery discharges.

I checked the battery status with coconutBattery, but things seem to look normal. The only thing that seems off is that charging wattage. I'd expect that to be somewhat close to my 96 watt maximum.

See the attached screen shot. Note that this is with all apps closed.

Are my issues due to my charger experiment a few days ago? Is this just coincidence and my Apple charger went bad?

coconutBattery

Best Answer

I doubt it's just a coincidence. There's more to the Apple chargers than just "give juice to the battery", but I couldn't tell you what another charger may have done to your system.
It could be as simple as an SMC reset (The SMC manages low-level settings such as battery management).

From howtogeek.com:

  1. Unplug the power, then shut down your Mac.
  2. Hold the left Shift+Control+Option keys down, then press and hold the power button down. Keep all four buttons pressed down for ten seconds, then let go.
  3. Plug the power cable back in, then turn on your Mac.

Here's the official SMC reset page from apple: T2, Intel chip

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