[miffed]

My Macbook charger just melted before my very eyes !

(see attatched pic )

I am going to pop into the Apple place tomorrow (10 days left on the warranty ) but I expect they will be as helpful as they were when my iMac developed a fault (also within the last few days of the warranty :rolleyes: ) I bet the will say its an isolated incident - whichh will be entertaining as I will drag the little scroat over to his desk and use his fingers to key " macbook charger melted" into his own Macbook pro , so he can see how "isolated" it is !

.... In the meantime , has anyone seen Macbook chargers for decent prices anywhere ? (I think the are around £495,000.00 on apples site :( )

Bloody typical - I am going away friday !

[Ben]

Hey,

This is a known issue with some Apple chargers and Apple will jump at the chance to replace it for you with a brand new one free of charge.

How do you remove your charger from your notebook? I'm going to assume you pull it out by the cord? Most people do this as the magnetism is pretty strong and there isn't enough plastic to grip.

When you get your new charger, make sure you remove it by holding the plastic and snapping it downwards. This easily breaks the magnetism without having to pull on the cable which damages the flex.

Other than that, just be careful. These connectors are a little weak and it's worth taking extra care not to let the cable become too twisted or bent.

I'm just glad it didn't set fire to your house!

[Hands0n]

How do you remove your charger from your notebook? I'm going to assume you pull it out by the cord? Most people do this as the magnetism is pretty strong and there isn't enough plastic to grip.

*blush!* - Errrr, that is exactly how I remove my cable from the Macbook Pro - but not any more. I did used to use the plug, but got lazy within days!

I must say that my power adaptor gets rather warm in use - not worryingly so, but all the same, warmer than I've experienced other laptop chargers!

[Ben]

I must say that my power adaptor gets rather warm in use - not worryingly so, but all the same, warmer than I've experienced other laptop chargers!
I can fry eggs on all of my Dell power bricks. My Apple one is reassuringly cool compared, unless I'm using the MBP and charging it up at the same time - then it gets toasty but not too hot to touch.

Definitely keep an eye on it.

[miffed]

Mixed emotions after my trip to serviceweb

I could sense the Guy's frustration TBH , he said he had seen this before , and that Apple accepted the first few returns under warranty , but they were now starting to reject them as "customer abuse" - the rationale being that the user "must" be yanking the thing out by the cord rather than gently grasping the whole plug
He actually told me himself that this was garbage , and that the plug / cable is clearly not man enough for the job - but his hands were tied so to speak ,

The resolve was favourable IMO though - he said he would send it back under warranty , but was pretty sure they would reject , in the meantime he has GIVEN me brand new a charger , and told me to expect an email next week , either telling keep the charger , or asking me to pay for it in the event of a rejection - and if this is the case , he will charge me £40 for it (£59 + P&P on Apples site ) ... he also hinted that had I bought the Macbook from them , they may have considered replacing it FOC as a act of goodwill , which is fair enough I suppose

I am quite happy with that TBH , My replacement was instant & if it does cost me £40 I'll be OK with paying it - The fact that Serviceweb did all they could to help goes a long way with me - as soon as they started talking about Apple rejecting these cases I mentioned that I had no means of payment with me , but he said "oh don't worry about that " and was more concerned about making sure I had a charger than he was about taking payment for it
Serviceweb - Great company ;)
Apple - Juries out :(

[Ben]

Hmm. I'm pretty sure if you did it via an actual Apple store they'd have handed you a new one, no questions asked. However I appreciate that the trip to Bluewater possibly isn't worth the £40! Sounds like Serviceweb need to take a harder line with their Apple counterparts ;)

Still, good service from them. I've still never done any business there but they're on my doorstep so it's only a matter of time.

[miffed]

Yes , I am really just happy to pay £40 (or not , will have to wait) just for an instant resolution - any "fighting" I could do from here would be really just a principle thing
I suspect you are right Ben , If I had gone to an Apple outlet , or even in a more "retail" style outlet (Seviceweb is almost just an office now ! ) , then they would have been a bit quicker to be replacing the charger before I told any prospective customers of the problem !

I am happy now , and thats all that counts IMO

But , let this be a warning to all you Magsafe users ! I am tempted to try and reinforce the thing myself ,with a little insulating tape - but I am not sure if this would help or make thing worse WRT heat build up

[Ben]

Insulating tape probably wouldn't help, the damage happens too deeply within the cable.

Most, if not all of the problems I have seen with chargers relate back to the first few generations of Magsafe, ie from Core Duo machines. A newer charger should really have had this fault fixed.

If you remove the Magsafe by snapping it downwards rather than by pulling the cord you'll be fine. Mine comes out by the cord sometimes in situations where it was designed to, but it's the repeated pulling that seems to cause the damage.

[Hands0n]

..... it seems that you are one among many!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/18/macbook_apple_support_hell/

Scary stuff!!

[Ben]

I'm really not sure why Apple are keeping so quiet on this one. Are they really going to try and quietly replace every adapter as it ignites? It'd be nice to know what ones are affected!

That poor womans problems go way beyond a bad adapter, mind...

[Hands0n]

It really is rather odd for any company with such a problem as this. Considering that any fire caused in a person's house could prove fatal! Apple should work quick to find out what is going on here and perform a recall. It will be much cheaper than being sued for causing the loss of an entire family's lives. Not in one invidual case - but it is more luck than anything else that a number of serious injuries or fatalities have not already occurred given the volume of Apple product that is shipping these days. Statistically it does not bode well!

[Hands0n]

Not for the squeamish http://www.appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=MacBook_Pro :D

[Ben]

Lol, wow, quite a comprehensive list.

Unfortunately it seems to be a mash-up of faults from across the 3 generations of the MacBook Pro.

[Hands0n]

Yes, and I guess if you make enough of anything there are bound to be one or two that malfunction. The clue, as ever, is how well the company remedy the issue as we all have seen with our five mobile operators. From what I've read so far Applecare seems to do its stuff.

But my fear is of fire caused by this particular fault. I used to leave the MBP on constant charge when not in use (haven't got a case for it yet - the Mrs is getting me one for my birfdee). Now I unplug it (carefully at the magsafe end) as soon as I have finished using/charging it up.

I should not have to feel so unsafe!

[Ben]

I still leave mine plugged in.

If you're worried about the fire risk, which doesn't seem to be setting fire to houses left-right-and-centre or anything but is certainly a source of ignition, then call Applecare and get them to check the serial number (I assume it has one) of the charger. Surely they'll be able to determine something from that. You can say that you know people who have had their Magsafe's spontaneously combust already and really lay it on thick how the potential fire risk is affecting your usage.

If it helps, I've not heard of any cases of newer chargers burning out yet. I also believe that with careful handling the risk is entirely negated.

Edit: This (http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/20/apples-macbookpro-85w-magsafe-adapter-finally-shrunk/) might interest you!

[Hands0n]

Well, to be sure, I've yet to read of one of these actually catching fire rather than just burning themselves out at the Magsafe end. But I tend to be naturally risk-averse (comes of a lifetime working for the Banking industry ;)) and knowing how these things can escalate unpredictably.

I must say though, from reading of the problems some are having with the Macbook and Macbook Pro ranges there does seem to be some extremes on the go. Tales of MBPs having to be replaced four times or more!! Then I look at my particular machine and its rock solid. I use it fairly often, never abuse it, take reasonable care as one should of any electronics - this stuff is not ruggedised.

Then I see how some people use their machines at work - you'd think the users believe their laptop were made of rubberised tungsten! I've even seen one MBP used as a tray to bring in half a dozen mugs of coffee/tea :eek:

Quite like the thought of the smaller power brick ..... but see no need for one just yet a while ... I'd want to see how it settles into general use - my thoughts are that the smaller form factor will do nothing to ease the heat generation issues. All that energy has to go somewhere! Physics is a relative constant ....