Chosen Solution
I have a MacBook Air 13’“ mid 2011 and it would sometimes charge and other times not charge. The condition grew worse and worse until the MacBook wouldn’t turn on at all. I figured that this particular MacBook only worked off of battery and somehow, if the battery went bad that the ac adapter had to go “through” the battery to the power supply. The times it WOULDN’T charge, the magnet charger would be GREEN. I’ve since replaced the battery and it’s doing the same thing. when I plug it in the screen gets brighter and the battery logo gets a lightning bolt (and the magnet is lit Green) but when I click on the battery icon while its charging it says “Battery is not charging” and says “source: AC adapter” and the battery keeps draining. The catch is, once the battery dies, the laptop wont turn on, even when I plug it in. NOTE: I’ve just used my same charger on a Macbook Pro and my charger worked just fine.
Your logic board has a problem within the charging control logic. One or more of the MOSFET’s has been damaged. Likely from a bad or fake MagSafe charger. This is going to take a bit of work to fix and someone who has the proper skills and tools to do it. Part of the problem is you can’t tell the real from the fake! And may people selling them will claim they are real. The only source I buy chargers is directly from Apple! Don’t Replace Your MacBook Charger With a Cheap KnockoffOEM MagSafe Chargers vs Cheap Imposters: Teardown for TruthLacking safety features, cheap MacBook chargers create big sparksCounterfeit Macbook charger teardown: convincing outside but dangerous inside Apple at one point made a large effort to stop the importation of these fake chargers, but with the intro of the USB-C standard for charging their MacBooks, Apple has stopped fighting. In fact I think they see this as a great way to kill off the older systems forcing you to get a new Mac!
