Anyone experience this with the Mac?

[kitchen_kink]

I have an aftermarket power supply for my iBook (a Macally). Recently, when I have it plugged in, it will often cause the battery indicator to flick between "Calculating" and the amount of power my battery has left, causing the whole screen to flick between bright and not-as-bright. Presumably it also makes charging a lot slower - essentially, the computer thinks that it's continually switching between being plugged in and being on battery power.

Thoughts? Whaaa?

Comments

[pir.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it's dying. Load on it from the laptop makes it shut off, load goes away so it turns back on again...

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

sounds (to me) like a bad connection. is the plug that goes into the mac bent at all?

to test the theory, try someone else's power supply and see if it does it then.

the reason the screen dims is because your mac is set up to be more energy-efficient (by using a dimmer screen setting) when its on battery power. you can change this setting in System Preferences --> Displays --> Battery. Click "Show Details" and under Options is a tick box, "Reduce the brightness of the built-in display when using this power source." unticking this will keep the screen fromd riving you batty until you get a new power adapter.

i had a similar problem.

starphire re-soldered the connection in the power cord and secured it with heatshrink. left to my ownd evices i would have gotten a new one.

actually mine was an old g3, so i just got a whole new-to-me g4 laptop... anyway; ymmv, but i think that checking the connection between your laptop and your powersupply, and the power supply itself, will help.

good luck!

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll try it. Actually, it's not doing it right now, so whatever. :) But next time it does I'll mess with the settings.

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

well, the settings change will keep it from flickering but it WON'T solve the actual problem which more-than-likely is the connection.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand that. It's just that it's not doing it all the time, so I'm probably gonna use the adapter as long as I can before replacing it.

[madbard.livejournal.com]

Remember that you can walk up to the Genius Bar of any Apple Store and ask them "Whaaaaaaa?" for free.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Indeed - one of my favorite things about having a Mac. :)

[starphire.livejournal.com]

I was also going to ask if you're absolutely confident about the connector - both on the power supply and on the Mac? It's all too common how these get damaged or worn out and start making intermittent contact. It's a problem with Windows laptops too.

Actually, the problem with Clara's power supply wasn't quite the actual connector - it was that the wire inside the cord from the power supply was broken - just before it goes into the plug that mates with the Mac. Too much flexing or severe bending and eventually the little copper wires start breaking.

I think the real problem is that people leave their laptops lying around in all kinds of situations that can put stress and strain on the power cable and the connectors that stick out of the side of the machine. I don't know why they aren't designed better to stand up to that kind of (obviously typical) use.

Also, good work playing Conrade, man.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm having a lot of fun doing it! ("Man." Hee!)

I noticed early on that the Mac adaptors are flawed in that way. The aftermarket one seems slightly more robust, but really only slightly. Somebody in the laptop power-supply biz has obviously got Mafia backing or something and gets kickbacks from the sale of new ones, which are precisely timed to wear out just after the time period where it seems like way too short a lifespan.