Slashdot Mirror
Dangerous Apple Power Adapters?
An anonymous reader writes "Even with all these exploding Dell notebooks and other notebook safety problems, Apple has seemed relatively immune. Every once in a while, some odd thing came along, but it seemed like relatively calm waters. Not anymore — Apple's notebook power adapters appear to be the source of some serious safety concerns. Every iBook and PowerBook user should read this and keep a close eye on their adapter — the adapters suffer from very poor design including wires that seem prone to short out and burn and zero short circuit protection."
Its low quality electricity causing the problems
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
"Is this the end for Apple?"
Can someone put this in Orcad/Pspice or something? This is really just a blurb of the problem with no technical details whatsoever.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Apple had a power adapter safety recall by the Consumer Product Safety Commission back in the G3 era, and a battery recall last year. Is this a new problem?
OK, so he cites that he himself had a problem with his adapter, and someone else. If this has not even happened to more than 5 people, I can't see how its dangerous by design. These seem like one-off individual problems, nothing wide-scale that would require a recall. I've had a PowerBook G4 since 2003, and the same adapter for 3 years, 0 problems.
I'm always curious to know exactly how many people are reporting issues when someone claims there's a major widespread problem. If a few dozen people complain of a problem it may sound like a lot. But if it's only a small percent of all customers it could be specific to only one lot of adapters or one specific subcontractor. He claims there's a design flaw but many thousands of people have been using these adapters for years with relatively few complaints.
Developers: We can use your help.
In other words, the words you wanted to say...
Dell and other PC notebooks suck and blow, but mostly Dell, cause that Dell guy said something bad about Apple, which makes them the worst. So we all know that Dells exploding and killing puppies and children is just another Tuesday.
Of course Apple has always been perfect. Many people even actually sit around wondering just how it is they stay so perfect. I know because I'm in a club. That's why it just boggles they mind that somehow something isn't perfect with the power adapter. Probably because they got it from Dell. So just know it's less than absolutely perfect and keep an eye on it.
Anyone that has owned powerbooks or ibooks knows about the crappy power adapters. I have personally lost three, of which only one was covered under warranty. The two biggest weak points:
1. the connector that plugs into the laptop did not have enough ribbing material, so it frayed easily.
2. the thin cable that runs from the laptop into the brick had zero ribbing, it just simply ran into a hole. Frayed easily, I even had one catch fire.
After three Apple laptops I even started noticing how Apple tried to attack these problems. If you look at the last power supply shipped before the magnetic connectors came out, you will see that the "thin" cable is almost twice as thick as the one that shipped with iBook G3s and Titanium Powerbooks. You will also notice much thicker ribbing at both ends of that cable.
The worst of this is that the apple branded adapters were $79 apiece, while a perfectly working replacement, with much sturdier cables, could be had for $35.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
I tagged the article "yes"
So a guy writes an article on his personal website, and its data? Geesh, what's next, people using the # of Slashdot posts about a topic to judge its validity?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Does anyone know of a universal* (AC) adapter that can go from the low all the way to 30VDC, and 500ma to 3.5A, both in variable steps, that'll not cost an arm and a leg?
*All the appropriate ends with polarity
This quickly attracted many thousands of visitors, some of whom contacted me to share similar stories with me.
Talking to a few people associated with some Apple Authorized Resellers & Service Providers found they had seen this failure many times before.
"some of whom", "many times" ???
How many millions of these things were sold, how many had problems? Until we know those numbers, this is nothing more than someone sitting in a room by himself and starting a fight so he has something to blog.
That's what happens when a manufacturer starts getting obsessed with cutting corners and costs. It's the sort of quality you might expect if you bought something like a cheap 400W power supply churned out in the Far East, only to discover it produces nowhere near 400W and it then goes pop after a short period of time. And I've never seen one of them do this.
Makes you wonder what you're paying Apple good money for.
"does my girlfriends pussy smell of fishes?"
No. She smells of inflatable plastic.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
you should post this in one of those sexual advice forums. most people here on ./ don't have a clue to what you re talkin about.
There is no warranty on anything, only legal devices to recoup losses. Quality workmanship and products are expensive, and there is a reason they are. All of this outsourcing of manufacturing will come back to bite the company that does it, this is but one example of how it will do so. If you want a brand name associated with quality, you have to build quality products/services, and they will always cost a bit more. That is the normal manner of things anyway. Honda proved this wrong in the auto market, several MP3 players have shown to be more rugged and usable then iPods (no hate mail needed, its true) and so on.
Basically, if you have a clue, you can look at electronics equipment and know that its either made well, or cheaply. That smell that many people associate with new electronics gear is the result of cheap manufacturing processes. You should also be aware that there are dangers to using replacement equipment not made by the original equip. manufacturer, especially with batteries and power supplies. If Apple, or anyone, wanted to sell you the last laptop that you will ever need (and they don't want to) it would be of a very high quality. Designed obsolescence has been the way of the western world for several decades. I'm not sure why a story like this is any kind of surprise to anyone.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Stop using fishoil as a lubricant!
Quite true.
What's a "fish"?
I'm sorry, who is Zink? And why should I believe the things he has written? Is he some kind of expert in the field of AC to DC converters? Does he source any of the people who have shared the same experiences as himself? I tried to look around his website, but could find nothing except for a few "Digg this!" links. Of course, it's on the Internet, so it must be true. Why question his motives?
The details you will need to know are: The gentleman, who complains about the problem, is a bubbeling idiot.
The power rating of these power bricks is 45W (for my iBook). Fourtyfive watts. If you concentrate that amount of electricity in a small volume, it is quite sufficient to set most synthetic materials alight. The possible exception being Teflon.
His comments (yes, I did RTFA) about the brick not having any kind of short circuit protection is groundless. He has experienced one type of SS protection, the type found in many large PC PSUs, which needs a power off to reset. Another type is the foldback, or current limiting SS protection circuit, which increases available power immediately after the short is removed. So it is no wonder that he could sense the power (by repeatedly shorting out the brick?! Asking for trouble, is he?) as soon as no short was present.
He would have a solid argument if he was able to draw an excessive current through the short, larger than, say, the 1.875A (45W @ 24V) the brick is specified for.
I just tried testing for this problem using the brick for my iBook, but failed miserably, since I don't have the proper connector to mate with the low voltage end: The thing won't even power on unless it is plugged into the iBook. This may be a design change since my brick is apparently of a more recent design as compared to the one shown in TFA.
So in summary the actual news items here are:
*) Frayed wire can short out.
*) A short may not be sufficient low ohmic to trip the power limiter in the PSU, yet the power you can draw through it may be sufficient to cause fires. (This is no different than for any other electrical appliance. AKA: Badly maintained electrical installations can kill you.)
*) Apple didn't employ sufficient strain relief at the point, where the power wire leaves the power brick.
Move along, nothing to see here.
They may not have changed the design of the iBook/Powerbook power supplies, but having just set up 20-30 new MacBooks, I noticed the cabling for the power supply is much thicker. I wonder if they added more insulation to them to prevent this sparking issue.
I have a HP omnibook 6000 and the connection near the laptop started to short. There is a lot of pressure on this part of the connector as you move about with your laptop. Probably the inner wires can rub bare before you notice any damage to the exterior.
I was wearing boxers and the shorting wires were against my naked leg when i discovered the problem, so I have limited sympathy for this guy with his burnt paper.
One thing that we know about China is that (1) it has few laws ensuring product safety and (2) that Beijing rarely enforces those laws. As a result, many products from China are just dangerous.
Consider the recent case of lead contamination of children's toys. The toys had 5x the amount of lead that is considered safe.
Now, consider the case of a bracelet that was 99% lead. A Chinese company made the bracelets for Reebok. A child who accidentally ingested the bracelet died.
Now, consider Chinese honey that is contaminated with a dangerous antibiotic.
Here is the summary reduction. The price of a product imported from China is $X. The price of a product made in the USA is $Y. Generally, $X is much less than $Y. The difference in price represents the "cost" that you paying for tough, enforced regulations and for higher ethical standards. Most American consumers do not want to pay this cost directly, so Walmart (a.k.a. the clearinghouse for Chinese products) prospers. Still, most Americans do pay this cost indirectly via, e.g., higher medical bills.
I had this happen to me too. The adapter just suddenly started shooting sparks, and nearly set my bed on fire. I had to buy a new adapter from a different company, and so far I havn't had any trouble with it.
I think the adapter I had was even a different one, since he was using a snow iBook, and mine is one of the original 300mhz iBooks. The original adapter was the "hockey puck" style white thing. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one having trouble with this though.
This is not a sig. This is a llama-duck. Quack.
And let me preface this with a quote from the article (emphasis mine):
"Like many Mac users, I don't roll my adapter cable around the small feet and have been very careful with my adapter, yet it still managed to short, spark and burn."
So what you are saying is you are not using the adapter in the way that Apple's engineers intended you to do so, and yet you cry foul play and "dangerous by design"? Are you at all surprised that the cable wore down due to misuse? Did you even bother to read the owners manual that came with your Powerbook?
I hear that bad things happen if you throw your adapter into a swimming pool with the other end still plugged into the wall too. Is this "dangerous by design"? There is no arguing that this individuals power adapter could have caused serious damage if that happened unattended. But come on, misuse any electrical product and you could cause serious injury or perhaps even death. Knife in toaster? Scissors to vaccuum cleaner cord? Open the back of your CRT television and lick the anode cap?
Whoa, I thought my incidident was isolated. My power supply for my iBook shorted right where wire goes into the connector that plugs into the computer. Some magic smoke was released and the connector/power supply was inoperable. Apple sent me a new power supply under my AppleCare plan. I don't know if they would have charged me otherwise.
About a month later my motherboard died. Again everything covered under AppleCare.
I don't think he's qualified to say that his adapter has zero short-circuit protection.
Here's what he says: Meaning, I can short the adapter on the DC side, generate a spark, and repeat again and again without causing the adapter to power off or any circuit breaker/fuse/GFCI outlet to cut the power.
He's expecting the wrong results. Sure, shorting any supply with output capacitors will generate a spark -- that's typical good design. The spark doesn't last long and it isn't indicative of the total energy released.
Now, if his circuit breaker or fuse triggered, I'd be concerned. That means the adapter is shorting out the mains voltage -- very bad, very dangerous. But, it apparently is not. It's good that this doesn't happen, but the guy seems to think it should. And a GFCI wouldn't trigger due to a hot-neutral short -- he would have to throw the adapter in a bathtub to have a chance of it tripping.
I'm not saying there are no problems with the adapter, but his assertion is unsupported by his evidence. I suspect that the adapter has an internal short-circuit protection that kicks in milliseconds after the spark is seen. He would need to use a current meter to detect if the circuit exists.
(why, yes, I'm an electrical engineer)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I'm on my second Aluminum PowerBook AC adapter after the first one crimped, then frayed, then went up in a literal puff of smoke. The worst part is I had to buy another of the clearly faulty adapters. You'd think they'd beef up the design a bit around the part that breaks for everyone, but no... Read the reviews on Apple's own page on store.apple.com for this adapter (average rating: 1.5 stars out of five), and it becomes clear that there's a very specific reason they redid the power connector ("MagSafe") for the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models.
Shameful -- and doubly a shame because this PowerBook (one of the original Aluminum PowerBooks) has proven to be a champ for over two years.
~jeff
I had one have a few broken wire locations due to wrapping the small cord around the clips when traveling. During the summer I don't need to carry the cable to school so it sits behind my desk. Well, I noticed my power cable going from green to orange to green to orange randomly... grabbed the power brick and burnt my hand. The small cable managed to break in a few locations and in those locations it turned a nice dark yellow. They replaced it out of warranty but I was pretty pissed they merely replaced the already busted ass design with the same adapter that would merely do the same thing again. Even getting burnt, it was a priority for their safety team but all I got was a replaced adapter, not even a sorry. As a recent switcher (almost two years now) and have spent a pretty reasonable amount of my tiny income on apple products I'm pretty unhappy with the resolution.
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
Apple has indeed sold some truly awful power adapters. My own first-gen iBook G3 went through 3 Apple puck-shaped adapters that all had problems with fraying and shorting. To Apple's credit, the 2nd replacement was sent out-of-warranty after I griped and complained a bit with Apple tech support. After that one died, I bought a plain-looking BTI replacement adapter which served me perfectly from 2002 to 2006, and as far as I know the iBook's current owner is still using it. My iBook G4 has not had any problems yet, although I've tried to minimize stress on the adapter by buying a 2nd adapter that I use whenver I take the computer out my home, and having the Apple-supplied one always live at my home computer desk. I would recommend all Apple laptop owners invest in a 3rd-party second power adapter even if they've had no problems. Believe me, from personal experience, the last thing you want it to suddenly have an adapter die on you and finish a major school or work assignment with the brightness turned way down, praying that your charge will hold out long enough to get the thing edited and printed out. To be fair, I know that Apple themselves probably didn't have anything to do with the design of these adapters; they just wrote up the power requirements and farmed it out to a 3rd party. But still, 3 power adapters in 3 years was a pretty major annoyance... I'm glad that Apple seems to be going with better suppliers now.
Apple provides full detail on how to build your own power adapter in this tech note. Guess what I'll be building over the next couple of weeks ;)
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
I don't know how dangerous Apple's adapters are, but they sure put a rather nasty load on the two inverters I regularly use my PowerBook on.
Both inverters will only start if only the Apple adapter is putting load on them. One of the inverters will crash and reboot if you put additional load on it together with the Apple adapter (1 kW inverter producing 220 volts from a 305 Ah battery.) I have never seen this behavior with any other load I have put on those inverters.
The future is in beta
It is a good idea to regularly check these cables as it is easy for them to be cut/ripped/etc. through normal use... especially for those who transport their laptops regularly.
These power adaptor fail all the time. I have already had one fray and or break in the same location this author was writing about (with the newer reenforced cord). Moreover, my art director has had this happen several times.
Although in all cases, our power adaptors simply stopped working. They did not spark. However, they did look fine on the outside.
As a matter of fact, this is so common that the Apple store replaces these things with no questions asked.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
The power adapters have been garbage since the first white iBook. They spark when you plug them in, eventually have to be held in just the right position to connect to the wall socket, often fray at the laptop end, or simply burn out. The Macbook adapters might be better, but they spent years with this square adapter design that just doesn't work.
Just look at the product comments at the Apple store.
It seems most of these problems happen in America. I've asked around people here in New Zealand and not one occurance of all the problems posted on the Net have happened here. I've also asked people in Australia as well and still nothing. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but if anywhere is going to have big problems it's going to be New Zealand and Australia because we have 240V systems as opposed to America's 110V. I think a number of issues need to be looked at such as whether or not these people are using multiboxes with surge protectors.
I bought a laptop for my wife about a year ago and we're on our fifth power cord.
The first place where there's an accordion-like piece of rubber bends a lot, particularly as I sit on the couch with it sitting on a decent size of plexiglas I've used as a lap desk for twenty-five years. The rubber starts fraying, the cover of the electrical cord becomes open to the outside, then it becomes a matter of moving the cord just so until it's in place and we see the icon in the system tray whilst calling Dell for a replacement. Because it's under warranty, we get a new one within two days, they never blink an eye.
Because the cord isn't moving that much, something has to be wrong, yet they never blink an eye (I'm certain some of that is they just do what they're told on the support line). I'd think if was a problem on a bigger scale something would happen to fix it but every cord has been the same (and had the same problem).
From his website:
"I'm currently starting up an exciting new company, Zink Foods. We are poised to revolutionize your perception of "healthy food" by combining taste and nutrition in a completely unprecedented way. Finally, real food, real taste, real nutrition!"
This sounds like a real expert that we should listen to? I guess it's not that hard to use slashdot to drive up your pageviews afterall.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
I think that Dell was mentioned because they are a large company that has recently had problems with their laptops. I don't think it's all that out of line, and I don't think that mentioning a recent news item that relates to this one is grounds for fanboydom.
I work in a lab where we have dozens of these bricks. We lend them out to students all the time, who do god knows what with them. Over the course of several years, we've not had one problem. No shorting out, no signs of wear, nothing. I personally have one as well, going on three years now. I take it with me every day, usually just throwing it in my bag. It looks the same as the day I got it and shows no signs of wear upon serious inspection. Mac users are a VERY VOCAL bunch. It is impossible to gauge the severity of a problem by listening to the Mac community.
Seriously...is Apple becoming the Old Navy of computers? Stylish, but not designed to last? Perhaps even engineered to fail early because you want the new style anyway?
I think I already used this analogy, but here it might not be so good...Apple isn't cheap. Hmmmm...
Blar.
I was fully intending to buy a new laptop at the end of the summer. I was thinking a lot about buying mac. Or dell maybe. Now I've been reading how bad all these laptops are and that gives me three choices; Stop reading slashdot Don't by a laptop Please help me! I don't want to stop reading slashdot but I really need a new computer. Not buying a laptop would eventually result in not reading slashdot anyway. My screen is already a bit rotten in the upper corner. What to buy when laptops suck? I already have access to 3 stationary computers at home and at least one at school. Maybe I should just buy a small truck and set up a rolling computer?
+1 Agree -1 Disagree
LOL?
After a bit of searching, I found an alternative to Apple's power adapters. This one sells for $50 (much cheaper than Apple's). I'm sure there are other companies doing the same thing as NewerTechnologies. Of course, as I mentioned in a previous comment, you could built your own using this Apple tech note.
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
Two years ago I was on vacation and staying with a friend when her pet rat decided to chew through my iBook G4/800's power cord. I wrapped a piece of duct tape around it and it seemed to be OK, but a few days later I plugged in the power cord and heard a clicking sound coming from the adapter brick. The inner insulation had been breached, and the two wires were touching.
I cut and stripped the wire with a pair of fingernail clippers, twisted it back together, and wrapped it back up with the duct tape. Several months ago the duct tape came loose and the wire shorted again. I re-spliced it, and wrapped it with Scotch tape, which was all I had on hand at the time. About a month ago the Scotch tape started coming off (as I had known it would), so I retaped it with white electrical tape.
I do freelance IT work, and haul my iBook everywhere. My power cord gets unplugged, wound up, stuffed into a backpack, unwound and plugged in somewhere else pretty frequently. Even when completely shorted out, all it did was make a clicking noise. The adapter brick can get pretty warm, especially when it's not well ventilated, but not uncomfortably so.
Please keep in mind that most of us never have a problem, even in unusual circumstances.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33 642
This one set my pants on fire. Yow.
done stuff like this.
The original Apple ][ did everything in software to save a few bucks.
The Macs? Same thing. Unshielded cables, cases... caused me a LOT of grief. Networking over serial? An attempt to save money by not putting ethernet into Apple kit.
Apple stands for interesting (cool) concepts implemented cheaply.
Reasonable software, though. But, its always been a bandaid over inferior hardware.
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I was under that recall - it went fine. I'm on my 5th Apple notebook (Duo, 1400, 1400, iBookG3, iBookG4, 9 adapters total) and have had exactly one problem - a recall on the spare black brick adapter for a 1400 that got me a yo-yo style that works to this day with the Madsonline gap adapter. Even my Duo duck-head adapter still powers my iBook in the same fashion.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
...everything just feels snappier!
His "facts" are outright wrong in either the positive or negative sense. First of all the materials are fire safe, as required by construction standards, fire retardent plastic is used. Secondly if you do decide to go spark happy on the unit, it will shut down, and auto reset when unplugged for a small amount of time. On the flip side, Apple -have- had battery + fire issues, similar to Dell. The exception being that there has been no doubt at all that apple didn't jump right into a battery recall once this happened, which is in contrast to Dell where there is suspicion they left it for a little while to see if it was an isolated incident.
On the other hand 24.5V is almost nothing to worry about especially with such a low current.
A final point to be made is how is his power adapter being used such that it's close enough to burn his powerbook... while I'm not one for strict policy, they do actually tell you to unwind the cable fully before use. (no one likes a magnetic field mmkay.)
The # of slashdot posts won't tell you anything. What you need to do is count the number of posts to usenet! Now that's real data. After all, it's how we figured out BSD was dying.
I think companies, including Apple but especially Dell, have issues with squeezing their suppliers just a bit too hard. They negotiate one price for a given volume and simply short-change the supplier. Then the supplier has to decide between (a) taking legal action to recover their money and thus kill their relationship, or (b) eat the margin. That's how companies like Dell figure it.
Unfortunately, there is an option (c) that basically says they will cut just a few too many corners so that they can only just meet the bare minimum requirements and stick it back to their abusive customer. This is, at least in part, what you're seeing today.
TANSTAAFL...
Fortunately, this is America, so it is very easy to figure out if this is a widespread problem: If there is no gimme-a-million-bucks-I-deserve-it class-action lawsuit ongoing, forget it. It is that easy.
Completely off the point, and I suspect just an opportunity to float the amazon affiliate link
Or, at least, you could the last time I checked.
I've still been too cheap to buy one, though. I've just re-soldered mine every time it breaks. (Four times and counting. My wife and kids can't seem to get the idea that stress at odd angles wears the wire out.)
Yeah, the puck was a bad design.
Yeah, if you need a PS without the electrical tape, get a 3rd party unit.
Oh, and the apple tech note someone posted a link to explains a bit about that little blue part that seemed to just go from ground to ground. The shell isn't really ground, but the connection for the resistor that the internal circuitry can use to check the type of the power brick.
It seemed aparent to me that OP was making the argument that this is not 'news' because this particular short was caused by user error. That is, it's not really a surprise that a strained connection would short; the article showed strained connections.
A blowhard is someone who is ejected in a car accident and complains about the design of the seatbelt he wasn't wearing.
A blowhard is someone who shorts his laptop power and complains about the design of the connection he was straining.
If one improperly uses safety equipment, it's rarely that safe! Should safety equipment be foolproof? I guess if the presumption is that only fools use it.
Many companies, including Apple, have had serious problems in the past with batteries. These companies don't make the batteries, so it's hard to say which finger to point at which party. The problem I had with the submitted article text is that it nearly equates a Dell to a WMD while all but bestowing a Nobel Peace Prize to Apple for a near perfect record.
It is flagrant bias. It is vile FUD. It is misinformation and propaganda. It has no place on the front page of Slashdot.
Honestly, read what he said again, "Even with all these exploding Dell notebooks and other notebook safety problems, Apple has seemed relatively immune."
It sounds like an Apple commercial.
"all these exploding" OMG, I have a Dell. Should I be worried!? Should I call the bomb squad?
"other notebook safety problems" Oh no, there's more? What are these myseriously ominous other safety problems? Is it safe to have a Dell in the same house with small children? Should I get a notebook safe or trigger lock?
"Apple has seemed relatively immune" I need to get a Mac! Only then will I have the peace of mind that my family is safe.
Oh sure, he mentions that, "Every once in a while, some odd thing came along, but it seemed like relatively calm waters." But that's a damn site better than a Dell exploding in your face. I can handle some odd things here and there in otherwise relatively calm waters, but I sure don't want my Dell taking my child's fingers off. Won't somebody please think of the children?
Oh yeah, and there's some info on some blog on the net that some guy thinks that Apple power adapters could be somewhat faulty and he's heard rumors from some other people that seem to have had similar experiences.
Apple couldn't buy such a favorable endorsement. Can you imagine if this story were reported on the evening news? Is it going to inspire caution in Mac users or would it inspire widespread panic in Dell users?
At best this story was submitted by an Apple zealot who couldn't bare to say one tiny little thing bad about Apple without a heaping helping of PC bashing and Apple glorification.
In the last 5 years, I have owned 2 Apple notebooks with their respective power adapters: a late 2001 600MHz G3 iBook and a 12" 1.25GHz Powerbook. Both power adapters (which I wound up using both on the PowerBook after the iBook finally kicked it) lasted, and as far as my knowledge still last, up until I sold the PowerBook with both adapters before my trip.
I know full well that the singular of data is not anecdote, but it seems that the author of TFA doesn't. So, here's two power adapters over 6 years that are still working properly that say otherwise.
Now, the plug adapters that plug into the power adapters on the other hand...
Well, they seemed to wear out after about 3 or 4 years of wear and tear (and I mean that...I toted them everywhere and gave them a good run for their money)...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
The adapter that came with my PowerBook G4 one day sparked and burned some of its own insulation. The reason being, is I had put too much stress on that area of the cable (next to the plug that goes into the computer) over a year and it had become frayed. It was out of warranty so I bought an adapter off eBay and now I make sure to put no stress on the cable if I can avoid it.
I'd say that this could happen to any electrical device.
"taking legal action to recover their money"
how is this an option? suppliers negotiate their contracts so if they lose money it's their fault.
Dell is better at negotiating with suppliers than the competition. That's good business, not abuse. A vendor can choose to not do business with Dell and some do.
This article makes some sense. But when he tries to explain that it should trigger an GFCI (or even AFCI), he gets way off track.
It would never trigger an AFCI, because there's too much smoothing circuitry between the output and the wall plug. No matter, as an AFCI is designed to protect against arcs in the walls and frayed AC power cords. So the AFCI comment didn't make sense.
Also, the GFCI comment doesn't make sense either. A GFCI is supposed to notice power being drawn and not returned on the neutral. The Apple power supplies are designed to be 2-prong devices, so they could never dump significant power on the ground pin and trigger a GFCI. The only way it could trigger a GFCI is if you shorted the live end of the cable to a separate return, like earth ground or a hot tub or whatever. Then the power would not come back on the neutral and would trigger the GFCI.
Anyway, a GFCI is supposed to prevent against things like dropping a live appliance into a puddle of water or whatever, not shorts internal to low voltage cables.
His spark test maybe means something, I see what he is talking about there. But I'm not sure about his testing methodology. Maybe he's testing a case expecting it to shut down and instead Apple just current limits, which is an acceptable alternative. I just can't tell with only the data on that page.
The article summary is definitely full of unwarranted hyperbole. The article isn't even close to triggering a level of "source of some serious safety concerns".
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The apple tech note that has been posted elsewhere, at least twice under this topic (and that explains the circuitry between the shell and ground):
0 2461-en
http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1266.html
Oh. Lookie here: Apple's tech note to cover this whole topic:
http://docs.info.apple.com/jarticle.html?artnum=3
Trying to remember where I found the head, perhaps it was an advertiser at lowendmac or smalldog or another of those mac special sites. I don't see it today. Well, I ignored the hits on ebay. I decided not to remember where because I think it makes more sense to get the 3rd party PS when I get tired of all the electrical tape.
One of these days I'm going to post pictures of the last repair job on my personal web site.
I recall that when MS a similar type of issue with the XBox 360 everyone on here was SCREAMING "WTF!!1!1? We've been screwed!!!" Where are all these people today?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The ancient mac classics that we had in high school had gobbled up dust over the years so they could self ignite. They just smoked as the dust burned away. The school got a gov't grant shortly after(thanks Clinton) and replaced them all with crappy pc's. People mostly laughed at the burning mac lab. The computers still funtioned even in their smoking condition. Electronics can go bad. They aren't designed for rough conditions. At least those old things would be funtioning today, if anyone cared to turn them on. Even my ancient apple II works. I have no use for it, but if I did I could use it. Can't say that about many pc's. I've watched an eMachine pc go bad after only 3 months of use, and no it was never abused. The thing just broke down and it's owner was not happy. To everyone bashing this article, shut up. I like to learn from other people's experiences once in a while. Yeah, it did look like this guy is a bit rough with his power cable, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take a quick glance at mine. I have a newer version of that white brick. It doesn't have any of his extra cable support, but as far as I can tell it doesn't need it. I'm glad slashdot posted this article. It only took me 2 seconds to check mine, like it took evey other mac owner on here to check theirs. Thanks for the warning OB. Angels winged on high, rock hallelujah.
Good to see Slashdot keeping up the barrage of anti Apple stories.
LOL, what? Are you from Bizarro-slashdot?
I wouldn't be so quick to claim that it's just a "blip". I have a new Macbook Pro myself, and while my power adapter hasn't been an issue at all yet, I still feel like it's a possible "weak spot" in an otherwise teriffic notebook computer. Yes, the wire is thicker than before - but it was horribly thin before now, on the Powerbooks. It's still nowhere near as thick as the power adapter wire I've seen on many other recently-built laptops. (I just worked on an HP Presario 17" notebook this morning, and while the adapter itself was quite a brick - the cabling from it to the laptop was easily 3x as thick as what Apple uses, and the connector on the end seemed to be of a good, sturdy design too.) Nowhere near the "cool factor" of the mag-safe adapter technology -- but also made so it would come loose from the jack fairly easily if tugged on. Furthermore, it plugged into the back of the notebook - not the side. I think the side is a terrible place to plug in AC power because when people sit indian-style and put the computer in their lap, their legs tend to put upward pressure on the connectors.
There was already a report or two of people with mag-safe type adapters having problems with them shorting and the mag-safe's plastic housing completely melting. (The photos I saw of one of these looked like the wire started pulling loose from the mag-safe connector itself, causing the short.) Did they abuse their adapter in some fashion? Well yeah - quite likely they did. But I don't think they did anything extreme like trying to glue it into the laptop either. IMHO, quality products should be designed to withstand a degree of abuse, as well as careful, regular use. It's not a perfect world out there and people will encounter such things as small kids tugging on cables or pets chewing on cords. It really doesn't cost THAT much more to make cabling a little bit more resistant to these mishaps.
that my Macbook adapter has a broken cord on it already. You know the little rubber bits that they put on adapters where the cord comes out? Apple decided not to bother with them. Bad idea.
The original power/ibook adapters had horrible issues with this, and the later ones were beefier, and took care of the problem. What do you call it when a company refuses to learn from its own mistakes?
I've gone through two of these in the last three years. They ware out, shock me, and I pay $60 for a new one. I still love my powerbook, but I am a little wary of the adapter.
Where is Ralph Nader? Demand revisions to these unsafe at any wattage adapters.
And don't buy into Apple's propaganda. The fact that these no longer ship with new apple laptops? Disinformation. The design is six years old? How convenient. Such an obvious flaw couldn't have possibly taken six years to be discovered. Wild conjecture. And those new magnetic adapters are clearly just more Apple spin control.
And don't get distracted by so-called timely shortcomings... like the absence of an Empower or other aircraft adapter for the new MacBooks because Apple won't license the freakin' connector. Come on Apple, give us an aircraft adapter, or step aside so someone else can.
I was just about to buy my wife 13 inches of flaming pleasure in the form of a new MacBook for her birthday. After reading this article, it looks like I'll have to give it to her the old fashioned way.
One thing is fure sure, if I do end up getting a MacBook, I certainly won't be putting it on the Freedom Furniture Laptop Table: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly0-Vbqyby8
Freedom Furniture Shattered My Laptop's LCD
I can't speak for everyone else, but so far I've gone through 2 mag-safe power adaptors. The current one has the same disease that killed the first two.
j pg
Here's a picture:
http://variableaspect.com/Gallery/magsafedisease.
From what I can tell, it's probably the strain-reliefs. The wires inside the cord seem to be stretching at different rates causing the grotesque deformation of the cord. Near the DC end, it looks like the cord is coming out of the cheap heat-shrink'd connection. (No, I don't try to straighten the cord) The first mag-safe adaptor I had came out of the heat-shrink exposing the wires inside. Mind you, I consider my usage to be very mild. I carefully wrap the cord around the rabbit ears on the brick, I always leave a lot of slack on the cord, and I use the 3 prong extension cord on the brick itself to maintain slack. I unplug my MBP by grasping the white plastic DC end (not the cord). And, for the life of me, I can't figure out why this cord-disease progresses as rapidly as it does.
I'll probably have to get this adaptor replaced within the month. That'll be the 3rd replacement in 6 months. If they don't get better, I'll have gone through 18 by the time my Apple Care is up. $79 x 18 = $1422. Seriously, I don't understand how Apple can not fix this.
---k--
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We've had two of these go.
5 274/index.html
I have a photo on our blog too:
http://homepage.mac.com/skingsley/xemaybe/C193547
About 4 headlines in.
You'll notice from the blog I'm pretty much an Apple Fan Boi (tm) but even I in my Appleuphoria can see that this is a problem.
.. that it was my mistake it burnt out! I was using a power regulator AND a spike buster to protect my powerbook and adapter.. and the result was the exact same burn out as described in the article (it's picture perfect for me).
Apple, though the best in design, needs to do one better when it comes to their adapter! They refused to replace mine, so I am going to go back in with this article as a reference, and ask for a replacement.
No matter how good they are, they do have their host of hardware issues (if not software ones, and thank GOD for that).
Usability Engineer, Master in Human Computer Interaction
Annecdotal. I was at WWDC where pretty much every single one of the 4200 attendees was using one of these power supplies.
Over the course one week of testing not one of them lit.
"Even with all these exploding Dell notebooks and other notebook safety problems, Apple has seemed relatively immune."
The original submitter doesn't seem to remember that Apple was one of the first manufacturers to have exploding/spontaneously combusting batteries in their laptop. Not only are they NOT relatively immune, they were the first to have a problem.
It doesn't matter who you are, if your battery supplier screws up, this problem can affect any company that uses lithium ion batteries. Since there are only a handful of manufacturers of lithium ion batteries, if there is some sort of quality control slipup (it happens at even the best of companies), you potentially have a few timebombs on your hands. Of course, it's the manufacturer of the end system that gets blamed even if it was the fault of their supplier.
Before you say, "They should have used a more reputable supplier!", keep in mind that the spontaneously combusting PowerBook fiasco was the fault of batteries from (I believe) either Sharp or Sony, I can't recall which but at the time they were the #1 manufacturer of Li-Ion batteries in the world.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Between my 12" Powerbook (3+ years old, new) and my wife's 14" iBook (2 years old, refurb), I had one power adapter die completely and the other has a bad connection where you have to smack it real hard a dozen times or so to get it to work (yeah, I get that one; wife gets the new aftermarket one). Interestingly enough, the one that died completely (iBook original) had a strain relief on the DC side coming out of the brick. My original one didn't, and it's the one still (sort of) working.
My PB Rev B 1GHz power brick gets incredibly hot. If its heat dissipation is compromised in the least (say, by a bedsheet being over it) it will overheat and shut down (which is better than burning up!). Under normal conditions, it gets too hot to touch and will melt plastic near it. I wouldn't mind a slightly larger power brick if it meant I didn't have a lump of burning coal attached to my rig...
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
While I agree that the new MagSafe DC Supply Wire is thicker, it's also supplies two different voltage levels and higher amperages. This doesn't mean that the internal insulation (which appears to be a point of failure) is thicker. To make matters worse, the strain relief at both ends of the DC line is poorer than my G4 powerbook supply. The computer side of the DC line on the Magsafe connector has little more than a piece of flexible shrink tubing extending a centimeter down the line.
The components I build home-brew are afforded better protection than this.
The Yoyo adapter for my black Wallstreet Powerbook went bang, as did THREE square white adapters for my 15" and 12" G4 PowerBooks. It was always a bang, a smell of burning and a distinct and permanent loss of electricity. On one occasion, even although a month out of warranty, Apple gave me a new one. It's not their support that's the issue, there is a design flaw. I don't know what that is though, but wanted to mention this here as I am now using a lovely new Macbook Black, but it also has a square white adapter and I'm wondering when it's going to go poof too! (Poof Two, the movie?) :-)
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
My wife's iBook power adapter malfunctioned a couple of months ago, it started to crackle and even let out a few sparks! The replacement runs for about US$80.00, a ridiculous amount for a product that is raising a stink in forums all over the web because of its' horrible quality.
However, I decided to inspect the adapter, detached the A/C plug, which snaps on and off the corner of the adapter, and was horrified to notice it was thoroughly charred on the inside. Then, I vaguely recalled that a power cord came with the iBook, in the box. This is what I'm talking about: http://www.shentech.com/aprepog4ib65.html
To my great relief, the new power cord snapped neatly into the corner slot of the adapter, and ran smoothly. It was the detachable A/C plug that was defective, not the adapter itself. Now, not only could we throw the defective plug where it belongs (in the trash), we also had made our device safe, as well as doubled the length of the cord, and saved ourselves $80.00 to boot! My wife and I were happy campers that day.
So, if you have an Apple laptop, check this out for yourselves and I'm sure it will allow you to solve/avoid this exact problem, and even if it's not malfunctioning yet, do it now, no use putting your expensive computer at risk. Also, even if you've misplaced the box and/or cannot find the power cord, buy that instead, as it's price starts at around $10.00, saving you quite a bit of cash in the process.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
There is one safety flaw of note here. Apple's power adapters supply power over one physical cable. Most other power adapters leverage the pair of physical cables bound together. This is a physical implementation strategy. If safety were a higher priority and durability, convenience, elegance lower priorities, then all cables would have enough separation that you could see the separate conductors under their separate insulators.
So this is why this is an apple-centric problem. They hold convenience, elegance, and durability higher than most other companies. They don't hold safety as a non-issue. The safety solution is to degrade these other factors and go with the cable that looks bad and bends poorly, fails just as often (or more often) but does so in a safer way.
I am not a fan of the future of the world being wrapped in NERF. But safety is something to continue to be concerned about. This is a problem with no real simple solution, and one that will continue to get worse as laptop power consumption increases.
-theed.
I've gone through three of these adapters in three years. On each one, the cable that leads to the powerbook frayed at the adapter. Maybe apple should try to make their adpaters less fluffy and more durable like IBM thinkpad's. After 5 years of use I have never had to replace my thinkpad power adapter.
"My PB Rev B 1GHz power brick gets incredibly hot. If its heat dissipation is compromised in the least (say, by a bedsheet being over it) it will overheat and shut down (which is better than burning up!). Under normal conditions, it gets too hot to touch and will melt plastic near it. I wouldn't mind a slightly larger power brick if it meant I didn't have a lump of burning coal attached to my rig..."
Why don't you wire your house for DC, like the big boys do?
If you repair your powercord that many times; why not solve your problem + any risks of getting electrocuted by using shrinking tubes? Put some tube over both wires; turn them together; solder it so it never comes loose; put the tube over and heat it up. If you put 1 big one over those 2 of them that cable will be virtually unbreakable.
;)
It'll always be a stresspoint though since the cables were cut there; so soldering is a major thing to do
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Duder seemed to have damaged his adapter, then continued to use it.
Now he blames Apple for making it possible for him to damage his adapter, and for not having built-in technology that understands he has damaged his adapter.
Don't let this guy near a toaster.
...the power adapter is failing due to it having Microsoft Power Management on it. Hehe, just kidding. Windows person here throwing out some light-hearted Apple/PC jokes. But seriously, it just seems Apple isn't used to engineering products with the Intel chips. From what i've seen and heard, i'm sure round 2 of the Powerbooks will have many of these problems ironed out.
I'm wrong for using it how it was designed.
Does anyone have any rational argument for why this product is not defective?
---k--
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