[Ti] bad luck with power adapter

[Kynan Shook]

Move your PowerBook to a different electrical circuit.  You're probably 
on the same circuit as something like a refrigerator (or power tools, 
or anything else that has a very large power draw when it first turns 
on).  What happens is the refrigerator will draw so much power that the 
voltage on the line drops, and then your power adapter will shut itself 
off to prevent damaging the computer.  The best solution is to use a 
different outlet.  Another option is to unplug the power adapter from 
the wall every time it happens to regain the power.  Installing a line 
conditioner or possibly a UPS that will boost the voltage to compensate 
for the refrigerator should also work.  If you want to try that, I'd 
recommend APC as one of the better manufacturers; go to www.apcc.com 
and look for their Line-R conditioner.

The sparks are normal; probably just a capacitor or something that 
still has a charge, or at least has a charge relative to whatever phase 
the AC is in at the instant it's plugged in.  They happen on pretty 
much every power adapter I've seen.  It's usually recommended that you 
plug the power adapter into the wall before plugging it into the 
computer, though I've never heard of any damage being done by 
performing those actions in reverse.
HTH,

Justin R. Miller <incanus at codesorcery.net> writes:
> I'm wondering if others tend to have generally bad luck with the Ti's
> power adapter.  I've got a 667 DVI and I use the little "white box"
> power plug directly (i.e. without the longer cord) most of the time.  I
> realize that these things are kind of frail and I take great care when
> winding the power cable every day.
>
> I had my original one fail after a few months, and I had it replaced
> with the current one, which has been fine for about 8-9 months.  Now in
> the past couple weeks it occasionally stops working, so that the little
> ring at the computer end does not glow and the battery starts ticking
> down.
>
> I also notice that occasionally when I plug it in, it sparks very
> slightly between the prongs and the outlet.  This is on a standard
> North American plug.