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13 month old mb magsafe exploded. what to do? what to do?

P

phuong

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 16, 2006
523
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it is the AC adapter of the macbook (core duo, not core 2 duo) which i bought for my gf last year. it suddenly exploded right at its neck (where it connects to the laptop. the laptop is fine - although it was excessively hot when this happened. i tried to plug my mbp's magsafe in, and it also worked fine.

how should i tell apple about this? the machine is 13-month old. i didnt buy apple care.
 

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i bought it online, with student discount. i don't think they sent me a receipt though.
 
I was going to start a new thread, but I guess here is better. My magsafe stopped working because the springs on two of the connectors broke. I have to wait 2- 3 weeks for a replacement. I am now using my old windows laptop :(
I'm not a mac fanboy or anything, actually I think xp is pretty good considering the amount of configuations it has to support, but I really miss my macbook pro.
 
Just wanted to say that my Macbook cord did the exact same thing. The Macbook is about 1.5 years old.

The wires break from too much bending, which causes a lot of heat due to resistance, and the insulator melts.

If Apple would reinforce the connection better, (like every other cord in the world) this wouldn't happen.
 
I had the exact same problem. I was five days out if warranty but they still replaced it. The battery might be next...(thats also happened to me, luckily the battery has a two year long garentee)
 
The wires break from too much bending, which causes a lot of heat due to resistance, and the insulator melts.
Click to expand...
No, bestia.

Been a while since I found someone who still believes that a knot can stop the flow of electricity !.

That should read:

The wires and inner insulator break due to too much bending or twisting, and short-circuit. this produces enough heat to melt the insulator and the copper conductors. Once it short-circuits... there is no way back.

There are a couple of adapter with the same issue. I treat mine with special care, but I really think the connector and the cable should be more rugged. They were not made to last. The ones in the Lombard PB was much more sturdy (uglier), but more durable.
 
this is a texbook example of apple putting design over durability/safety. I guess its probably gona take a few peoples houses burning down and lawsuits until we see this issue properly dealt with.
 
phuong said:
it is the AC adapter of the macbook (core duo, not core 2 duo) which i bought for my gf last year. it suddenly exploded right at its neck (where it connects to the laptop. the laptop is fine - although it was excessively hot when this happened. i tried to plug my mbp's magsafe in, and it also worked fine.

how should i tell apple about this? the machine is 13-month old. i didnt buy apple care.
Click to expand...

Walk into an Apple Store and show any genius and they better replace it for free. Make sure you have all 3 parts (adapter, 2 plug attachment, grounded cord).

I got my adapter replaced and all that was wrong with it was a little cut and one tiny wire visible near the magsafe and I got a brand new adapter (the new one too :cool:).
 
Mattydj said:
My Core Duo Macbook did that in the exact same place. Called apple, they replaced it no questions asked.
Click to expand...

did your computer pass the 1-year mark? i mean 12 months is the warranty period isn't it? (im not sure how long its warranty is.) also did they ask you to return all 3 pieces of the magsafe? because my gf threw them all away, except the main part - she didnt know what they were for.

anyways ill call Apple as soon as i get home today. i hope thing'll go smoothly
 
phuong said:
it is the AC adapter of the macbook (core duo, not core 2 duo) which i bought for my gf last year. it suddenly exploded right at its neck (where it connects to the laptop. the laptop is fine - although it was excessively hot when this happened. i tried to plug my mbp's magsafe in, and it also worked fine.

how should i tell apple about this? the machine is 13-month old. i didnt buy apple care.
Click to expand...

Cmon man... look at that magsafe connector and cord. They are both beat to crap. Just LOOK at the pics closely. I agree with the poster that said when those wires get twisted and bent enough they will short circuit.

This comes from abuse more than anything. If people would take care of thier things this wouldnt happpen. Alas we live in a disposable world...
 
the magsafe was designed to be safe. that's litterally what steve jobs said in his keynotes.
i've never seen exploded AC adapter from other branches before.
 
phuong said:
the magsafe was designed to be safe. that's litterally what steve jobs said in his keynotes.
i've never seen exploded AC adapter from other branches before.
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safe from tripping on it and knocking it out,..
 
See the completely ragged edge and the lack of scorch marks? Are you sure it exploded and was not torn apart? If it overheated, the cord should not have this appearance.

There are also 2 unrelated cuts on the cord. The insulation is clearly compromised by these cuts.
 
MacinDoc said:
See the completely ragged edge and the lack of scorch marks? Are you sure it exploded and was not torn apart? If it overheated, the cord should not have this appearance.

There are also 2 unrelated cuts on the cord. The insulation is clearly compromised by these cuts.
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Yes, the power adapter looks a little beat up, but that's to be expected with a mobile machine and it's power brick.

Also, there should be a circuit-breaker that breaks on these things once the wires are crossed. Something is clearly wrong with these adapters if they are melting the plastic and everything without tripping the breaker.
 
These are power cords for "mobile computers". Meaning the cords along with the laptop will get pack and unpacked. The cords should be designed for a lot of use. Both Dell and HP have stronger cords on there power bricks for their laptop computers.

BUT, Ultimately is seems Apple has decided to replace these power adapters with a new version, which means there was something obviously wrong with the current one.

BTW, when you cord "blew up" was the sound loud? Were there any sparks? I don't want mine to do the same thing...
 
Mine did a similar thing, though not nearly as drastic, but I took just the adapter itself into the Apple Store near me and the guy replaced it instantly, no questions asked, didn't even check my warranty. They know those parts have been having trouble, though some won't admit it, but they should take care of it no matter what.

jW
 
zepharus said:
Cmon man... look at that magsafe connector and cord. They are both beat to crap. Just LOOK at the pics closely. I agree with the poster that said when those wires get twisted and bent enough they will short circuit.

This comes from abuse more than anything. If people would take care of thier things this wouldnt happpen. Alas we live in a disposable world...
Click to expand...

The first image (on left) shows scorching (brown staining). As for looking like it was beat to crap, I don't see it. I'd agree if I saw, for instance, chew marks or some type of definitive creasing (these cords aren't exactly the consistency of spagetti)...I don't see anything but what appears to be some type of overload. Let the genius determine what it actually looks like, based on how he/she observes the damage.

What I see is a cord that looks like it burst apart from the inside. Until you can compare how the cord looked before and after, how can you know that it was abuse that lead to the damage. Several posters also complained that something similar happened to them.

It's pretty easy to assume that the cord was first abused, but how many issues does it take before someone actually takes a real look into the issue? I'm not saying that this is becoming a common problem, but things do happen. Anyways, why would one even bend that area of the cord? That's very close to the connector (as close as it can possibly be). I do see a cut less than an inch beyond the connector...we can wonder about this but it's worthless for use, the unaffected, to assume, since this isn't our machine and its not us having to visit a genius.
 
it made a hard, sharp sound - but not very loud - kind of like it was from a tiny firecracker.
i dont know if there's any sparks since i didnt look at it. but there are scorch marks around the "wound."
 
phuong said:
it made a hard, sharp sound - but not very loud - kind of like it was from a tiny firecracker.
i dont know if there's any sparks since i didnt look at it. but there are scorch marks around the "wound."
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info... Hopefully it doesn't happen before I get my new power cord.
 
I did notice that the wire connection next to the magsafe is getting loose, and there is some small wire length (half a milimeter) that is not covered by the plastic protection anymore. So I started being concerned about the magsafe falling apart a couple of weeks ago, but I was not able to drop by the Apple store... This story makes me consider this a very high priority action. :eek:

I assume I will be without my laptop power supply for a couple of weeks. :(
 
Sue Apple!!!!

Class Action, baby. lawsuits are all the rage these days. What about the emotional anguish you've been through??;)

They just announced they've stop shipments of those death traps. So getting a new (functional) magsafe should be easy.

Guess they're working them pretty hard over there in the Apple factories.
 
Just wanted to say, that this happened to mine as well.
Lying on a couch daily and having the back of the couch to your left, so that the adapter is pressed against the back, is enough to make it explode.

Even when having AppleCare, they didn't pay for a new one...I seemed to be one of the first a couple of months ago...
 
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