The first time this happened I wasn’t majorly concerned as this was a ‘one-off’ thing. But hearing it happen a second time makes me slightly worried, but only slightly. I was a bit skeptical at the last incident as to whetehr the furry kittens had any part of the problem. However, this time it is a bit different: the power cord was burning as you can see from the image above. Luckily the owner (who goes by the name of Atomsk on the Bit-tech forums) was there when this happened and witnessed the event.
I was using my macbook pro in bed earlier and I started smelling a burning smell and look down at my laptop and see that the magsafe power cable is melting. I am on the phone with apple right now to see what they are going to do. I am just thankfull that I was using it when this happened otherwise It could have burnt down my apartment or something.
The first time it happened, Apple was quick to sort it out, and replaced Mr. Mulder’s MacBook Pro quickly, but they also requested for the images to be taken down. I’m sure something similar is going to happen again. However I don’t think this problem is solely the MagSafe’s problem. The cable seems to be bent as if it had been constantly used and worn out. I think that this seems a more likely cause, as I have had such electronics cables have the wire exposed as the time went by. But the burning is still irregular. For those touting a MacBook or MacBook Pro: Maybe you should keep that extra eye on it for the time being.
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2 days ago, looking at my magsafe “plug” I noticed a black smoke stain. Looking closely, I could see that one of the pins was starting to corode from an electric arc. I have taken some pictures, (Let me know if there is a way to post the picture). On the computer side, there is no damage at all, no sign of sparks, or heat. For that reason, I suspect that the problem happened while the computer was not plugged in. The pins of the adapter may have come in contact with a metal object and an electric arc may have resulted. Fortunately, a local MAC repair shop replaced the adapter which was still under waranty. I suspect that other much more serious problems may have started the same way: The magsafe plug arcs when coming in contact with a metalic object, the pins are corroded, and no longer make a clean contact when plugged into the computer = sparks = heat = serious melting problems.
You can host images with free sites like photobucket.com and then post the link in the comments. Or you could send me your pics to blog [at] theminiblog [dot'] co [dot'] uk and I’ll put them up for you.