Up in Smoke
July 13, 2007
This little feature came up repeatedly during my three years with my PowerBook G4. I had to have my power adapter replaced four times because the worn-out cable began sparking and smoking. The design of the cable was clearly just wrong—a laptop’s power cable should be able to withstand years of being bent, twisted, and wrapped around the power brick. Fortunately, Apple’s redesigned MagSafe adapters introduced with the MacBook line appears to have fixed, or at least diminished, the problem See Barry’s comment on this post.
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That same thing happened to me with a MagSafe adapter for my MacBook Pro. The only difference was that the problem was at the other end—the part that connects to the laptop, not the part closest to the power supply. When I called Apple to ask for a new power supply, I had to go through 10 minutes of questioning asking whether I had been injured as a result of the problem in 50 different ways. Lawyers these days…
That stinks. I was hoping since I hadn’t had any problems, they might have fixed it. It always happened on the connector side for me, too.
Chris Messina at Flock sat at the same table as me, and I remember experiencing the stick of at least one of his power adapters. Come on, you like a little excitement.
I can’t believe the guy played with it like that while it was shorting out. The three times this happened to my PowerBook’s adapter, I unplugged the thing as carefully and quickly as I could. But then, I’m afraid of both fire and electricity.
My friend was typing on his bed and the power adapter burst into flames. He unplugged it and smacked it until it went out. He then bummed my power supply every time I saw him for a week until he got a new one.
I think this has been a big problem. I’ve gone though at least 3 power plugs myself. You think they could get it right. well a new one I’ve seen is one with a magnetic pull but will just come out if you pulled the plug out. Well I guess you not alone are you!
My Mac power adapter quit working just 2 days ago – the prongs that flip down won’t stay in the locked position anymore. So, when I plug it in, they wobble down just enough to break the circuit. I have to sit next to the plug and hold the adapter in with my knee so it doesn’t move.
I already installed Linux over the OS because of problems I had there. But I think at this point I’m definitely replacing the whole thing with a PC next time I have to buy the hardware. Sigh.