[Ti] Power adapters

[Kynan Shook]

How are they failing?  I'm aware that many people have had them fray  
at either the brick end or the plug end, presumably from lots of  
bending.  I personally haven't had any problems with this on any of  
the 4 or so adapters I've owned over the last few years - but I have  
separate adapters at home and in my backpack, so I'm not always  
winding and unwinding my adapter every time I go out.

However, if there's not a visible failure in the cord, be sure to  
test the adapter; the newer white adapters (the 65W one) have a  
protection circuit that will turn off the adapter if there is ground  
noise on your power line.  This typically happens when you have a  
refrigerator, motor, or some other large load starting up (especially  
on the same circuit, but not always).  If you unplug the power  
adapter and plug it back in after this happens, it will start working  
again.  There are two solutions; the easiest is to connect the  
equipment causing the ground noise and the PowerBook to different  
circuits.
If that doesn't work, the only other option might be to install a UPS  
or line conditioner for the PowerBook.

I know this confused me at first; turned out I was in a dorm room  
with a pair of mini fridges on the same power strip as my PowerBook.   
I moved it to another outlet, and it was fine.

Hopefully this will save a few people that might have first thought  
the adapter itself was dead...  As for fraying cords, perhaps we can  
get Apple to encase the cable in steel or something. ;-)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=32155

Steve Wozniak <steve at woz.org> writes:
> I have had about 6 of these 65W adapters go bad this year, right in  
> my home. I threw them out and purchased new ones. After it happened  
> twice I knew there was something wrong with this device. Today I  
> remembered to carry my adapter, which worked fine all weekend in  
> Boston, in my small carry-on bag for a flight. In the airport I sat  
> down and plugged into an outlet. When I inserted the power plug  
> into my closed PowerBook I saw it flash green and then go out. The  
> adapter went bad in this instant.
>
> I'm a bit pissed because if it happened to me a half dozen times in  
> a year, it's probably happening to many more.