Chosen Solution
Power went out today and the house got got a surge when power was restored. Bedroom light was much brighter than usual for 30 seconds or so. Misc. cheap Household powerstrip got fried+microwave oven no longer works. My MBP17 was running at the time and I didn’t think to quickly power down when the power went out. I didn’t realize till later that the magsafe was not ‘green’. I always run off the powersupply. The MBP and 3 external drives are plugged into an inexpensive ‘protected’ powerstrip. Had no trouble with any of the hd’s. I bought the powersupply a couple months ago, ‘reconditioned’ frrom OWC. Could it be a bad PS and just bad timing, or maybe a bad magsafe board? I don’t have access to another PS. How do you check voltage with those little pins in the T-connector? Different voltage per pin? Or same v accross them all? Thanks for any help! -Mike MacBook Pro17" a1229 Last 5 SN# digits- …R9YAN More info…I tried other sockets on the ps, different outlets in my room and others around the house. I get no light from the magsafe LED at all. The MB ran just fine until the battery ran out. I was playing with garageband until I noticed the low battery, and then realized the magsafe’s green light was out. No orange or red either.The battery doesn’t last long at all, so I keep it plugged in 99% of the time. I’m hoping the ps is the problem and the logic and left I/O boards are undamaged. I guess I need to find someone with a MBP I can test the ps on…
1)If the Magsafe is operating properly it will not be putting out any voltages until it is enabled by the SMC. To test if Magsafe is good the voltage tests are done from the DC In Board on a known good Apple laptop, as the SMC needs to activate the Magsafe. It is kind of a Catch 22. Have you tried plugging it into a different socket on the power strip? What color if any are you getting from the Magsafe LED? If it is orange or red that means it is charging. On some MBPs the battery needs a 15% or greater charge before it will power up. If it is charging leave it plugged in for an hour (The battery should tell you it’s level of charge) then try to power it on. If it powers on problem solved. If it doesn’t see 2). 2)The Magsafe should (even aftermarket) have protective circuitry in it, making it die before it kills the notebook. If the Magsafe has no light either it is bad or the SMC can’t see it to activate it, in that case I recommend you test the Magsafe on another MBP. If you can’t access another MBP then replace the Magsafe. - No further troubleshooting can be done without a known good PS.
Maybe a little late, but maybe someone has similar issues. The MagSafe adapters have a 3 Stage surge protection builit in, consisting of a fuse, a varistor and a thyristor. Either or all of them will act to prevent the power supply or the notebook from suffering any damage. In my case all of them were blown which I found our after opening the case. There are plenty of instructions on how to do that on the internet. Just to test the charger I hard-wired the circuit and oh wonder: Everything came back to life. Now I ordered the spare parts for a handful of euros which should take care of everything. Reminder: Don’t do this if you don’t know what you’re doing. Cheers
I have fixed one MacBook charger with the same issue. Steps - Identify the fuse (T3.15A 250V) near the AC input.Just check the continuity of fuse with multimeter.If no continuity, you have found the issue.Just connect the fuse’s end with a jumper wire.Plug the charger and test the output. It should work.The charger will work like this but for future protection try to get the same fuse from market and replace with jumper wire. I will be posting the pics soon.
Hello Chris, I am trying to repair my Magsafe PS, because I believe I have a similar problem than you. I opened the case up and would like to identify the surge protection elements to bypass them and try if it works. Could you tell me how did you do this? Thanks! Joe
i am in Asia and have experienced a power surge which according to the local Mac Technician the surge fried my Mac Book internals. Before i dispose of the machine… is this fixable?
I am in Asia too and also experienced power surge, now my Magsafe Charger wont charge.The LED is completely no light.please help.
Hi, I had the same issue with my MagSafe for MacBook Pro. There was no charging after a sudden power surge. I had lost all the hopes and was already checking my pockets to buy a new charger when I came across this approach of sitting on the charger for 5-10 mins to warm it up a little and then try charging. It sounded extremely absurd to me but I thought of just giving it a try before I spend my $100. To my surprise it worked and my charger is working fine. I would like to know the reason why this happens with MagSafe if anyone knows. Cheers to the online community for suggesting this solution. Bhavya
I have 3 MacBooks Pros and 1 Air - 1 -2010, one 2012, one 2015 and the Air is 2015. Never had anything but standard charger issues like broken cord near the adapter until moving into this house about a year ago. Since then, all 4 chargers have been acting up at times. I have reset SMC’s, changed cords, different outlets with varied results. I bought a $45 voltage stabilizer which I am skeptical about. It clicks on and off often and shows voltage swings from 200-230 volts. It appears a charger should be able to handle this but I am thinking that Apples Magsafe adapters have protective circuitry that shuts down the charger if there is “dirty” current, meaning outlets that have other electronics on the circuit that sends random signals down the line which the MagSafe doesn’t like and will shut down the adapter. All 4 adapters eventually reset themselves, probably because the current was not so terrible that it didn’t outright destroy the protection circuits in the MagSafe. I find when I either change to different outlets, many times they begin working again. This is getting REAL annoying but I bet a quality voltage filter might fix the issue. Perhaps the more times the adapter resets itself, the easier it is for the circuit to trip again. I honestly don’t know the true issue but it’s the only possibility that makes any sense. I find almost no info online about this issue. Let me know if anyone finds the true issue! Don
