I have a UD-CAM that works fine with numerous Apple thunderbolt-3 based client laptops that I bring to my workstation to work on. However, they all exhibit the same minor behavior when idle. On a non-regular delay, the laptop will make the “you just plugged in a power adapter” sound. Sometimes it’ll chime 2 times in 5 seconds, sometimes after 30 seconds, sometimes after a few minutes. All while the laptop sits idle and asleep. If I log into the computer, it doesn’t seem to happen. And this does not happen when attached to an Apple power adapter.
It’s happening right now to a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019). Does not seem to affect 13" models at all. Is it possible that this dock is not quite up to the task of supplying the full 85W of power?
Plugable-supplied power adapter. Pluggable-supplied USB-C cable. No USB devices, no HDMI displays, no headphones, no LAN cable attached.
Given the issues you describe, I’d like to try disabling Power Nap to see if that has any impact on the issue you describe. To do so, you can follow these steps:
Navigate to System Preferences > Energy Saver
Click on the Power Adapter tab
Uncheck the “Enable Power Nap while plugged into a power adapter” setting
I just plugged in a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019). I left it as-is to prove first that the issue was still happening and it was. I then turned off PowerNap and it’s still beeping every minute or so.