Melted powercord!?

You are out of warranty (unless you purchased AppleCare), so probably not. If you're close to an Apple Store, you can go in and ask.

The MB power adapter will not run the MBP and charge the battery efficiently at the same time - it's a 60 W adapter, versus the 85 W adapter your MB needs, so you should get the proper adapter.

You probably do need a new battery, too. That Apple may cover - they extended the battery warranty to two years for all Core Duo machines, and have replaced batteries for C2D owners under the same program, all due to bad batteries made by Sony. Read the following linked page to see if it applies to you:

http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/

Hope this helps...

you will be able to get the new battery I had the same problem and they extended the warranty on all mbp batteries to 2 years no matter if they were the bad sony ones or not.

My power cord just melted last night. I can't believe apple would not fix this for free!!! It is not our fault that the cord melted away while we charged our computer? I am going to go in and talk to someone about this and see what happens.

Can we see some pictures of the power cord?

Yeah that's lousy.

The older AC adapters have a serious design flaw. The cord they use is too thin and delicate. You will notice that non-Mac laptops have AC adapters with much thicker cords, or cords that are designed in a way that completely isolates the two wires (live and ground) into two separately encased parts.

The cord Apple uses is designed so that one wire bundle is in the center "core." Then they put a plastic sheath around this center wire. Then they actually weave the second wire bundle around this, and finally encase the whole thing in plastic. You can see what I mean if you cut the cord and look at the cross section. This design, especially for the very thin and flexible cord used in the AC adapter, is not well-suited, because what happens over time is that as the cord bends and twists, the very thin wires inside will eventually break. This break causes an increase in electrical resistance and heat. The heat then melts the plastic insulation, which then in turn causes the ground and live wires to contact, and then you have complete failure.

I also believe that this progressive damage to the AC adapter also causes damage to the battery when charging.

That's the detailed explanation.

I've noticed that the newer AC adapters use a slightly thicker, less flexible cord. Whether this helps to prevent premature failure, I don't know. I've also noticed that the wattage on these adapters has steadily increased--the older PowerBook adapters were like 45-65W, and now they're 65-85W.

AC adapters should never fail in this way. It is a fire hazard. Even if it is not under warranty, you may want to try to explain your situation to a Mac Genius, and see if they are sympathetic.

In the future, here are some tips to help prolong the life of your AC adapter.

1. Never pull on the cord, or bend it sharply.
2. Don't use the little "wings" to wrap and store the cord.
3. Use the adapter only when necessary to charge the machine--don't leave it plugged in for long periods of time.

Personally, I think it's a little crazy to have to be so obsessively careful with an AC adapter, but the last thing I want to have happen is a house fire because of a poorly-designed power brick.

The pictures above are from Stellarformation.

The pictures there are similar to mine just it happened like an inch from the magsafe end. I am very careful with mine as it is normally just at my desk. When i do travel somewhere i do use the wings though, guess i just assumed they were ok because apple had the great idea to put them there.

The wings are deceptive, because you would think that if the adapter is designed with this feature, it must be intended to be used. But the problem is that repeated winding and unwinding of the cord around these wings can cause premature wear of the current-carrying wires inside.

As I previously explained, the cord itself is subject to a design flaw--because the ground and live wires run coaxially (one is in the center and the other runs around it), bending the wire in any direction causes tension on one side and compression on the other. This will eventually cause breakage! Note that most two-wire power cords employ either separately insulated wires (these cords look flat, often with a groove running longitudinally), or a twisted design (these are round, but if you slice them open, the wires do not run coaxially).

I believe that the current cord design is a reflection of Apple's decision to put form over function, aesthetics over durability. A traditional flat, grooved power cord looks ugly and is reminiscent of common household appliances. A thin round cable is visually clean. But I have cut open these cords and I can tell you it is an inherently flawed design that is prone to failure. Running 85W through a tubular network of hair-thin wires woven around a central bundle is just asking for trouble. When even one filament breaks, the resulting local increase in resistance creates heat, which in turn softens the insulation, which makes further breakage more likely, causing a chain reaction when multiple breakages melt the insulation and shorts out the cord.

I am not an engineer and even I can tell you that this is precisely the mode of failure that is experienced by this design. The reason why we're seeing it more often at the adapter end or the MagSafe end is because those are the spots that bend the most. If you read the reviews of these adapters on the Apple Online Store, you will find hundreds of posts confirming this.

Form over function is not a rational design approach for a device that carries power, and can be a potential electrical/fire/chemical hazard. (Melting plastic gives off toxic fumes.) Someone can get hurt by this design, and this is what upsets me the most, not the $80 or so that the adapter costs. A product should not, through its design, needlessly expose the user to injury with normal use.

So to reiterate, do not use the wings to wind the cord. Leave the cord loose, do not make sharp bends in it, and use the grounded 3-prong extension cord whenever possible. I had one failure with my old 12" PB G4 adapter--I don't intend to have another.

It is quite disgusting an experience that after only 3 years of use, the power cord for my 85 Watt adapter already melted and had to be replaced by a new one which cost a fortune here in the Philippines (Php6,500.00)

If you compare it to the power cord (and adapters) of other laptop brands, you will see that theirs last longer for several years. Their laptops are already replaceable and yet the power cord and adapters can still be used for another unit.

GUYS out there who knows somebody inside Apple, can they do something about this?

THANKS TO ATOMIC WEDGIE! BRAVO ! THIS IS WELL SAID.
When my power cord melted and I saw what's inside, I was fuming mad because I realized that you don't have to be a genius to know what's gonna happen when very thin wires are constantly twisted by repeated use. Whoever designed this power adapter have only one thing in mind: MONEY!

You get more adapters and batteries damaged - presto- you make more money as people have no recourse but to buy new ones for their laptops. APPLE GUYS you leave us no choice huh!

I believe that its still aesthetic and yet durable when the wires are separated and colored white isn't it?
Now I am thinking a million times if I will upgrade or not to the new 17" MBPCore2Duo. There are already much cheaper top of the line branded laptops that can give us more features and benefits bundled with great after sales services.

This is bad ..... happily it has yet to happen to me(fingers crossed, touching wood, and kissing a frog caught on the first dew of a new moon 😉 ) .... but the design of the brick is "probably" not the problem. The quality of cable, the design of cable structure, along with the amperage drawn along it is likely the main issue, coupled with the fact that very few of us are as neat and tidy as we should be when it comes to cables(out of sight, out of mind). Spending time "behind the scenes" with some decent cable tidy is well worth the effort.

Heat is usually the big issue with cable breakdown, and "coiling", "creasing", basically anything but a unhindered straight run will - after time - generate enough heat in the cable to cause a failure of it's internal structure. Thin cable such as that in question here will fail quicker than most. It would be interesting to know what the "amp rating" of the cable in question is.

Consider 3 years of use to be pretty respectable. Many users have seen their adapters fail catastrophically after MONTHS of use, not years. There have been cases where the MagSafe plug itself melts! Do you have any idea how hot the metal has to get to melt it?

And as for the money question, I don't really care. $80-90 for an adapter for a computer that costs over $2000 is not a whole lot. I care only to the extent that the adapter causes fire, property damage, or injury, or damages the computer in some way. I don't believe that Apple designed this device to turn a profit--such a claim isn't consistent with their business practices, and doesn't make sense from a legal liability or profit margin standpoint. There are easier and better ways to make money than by making defective products, ways that don't put consumers at risk.

I believe the adapter is designed the way it is because it LOOKS good. It is primarily an aesthetic decision. It is not designed with durability in mind. It does no good to attribute this issue to any malicious intent.