Wow...just wow. Like farleftlane said, it boggles my **** mind that after I paid AUD$1,300 for this laptop, this kind of **** what I have to put up with from a supposedly "superior" product. It's the general consensus among IT professionals (and many other geeks) that Apple notebooks are the "best" on the market, and "well-worth" the extra expense...I find this absolutely absurd!
Granted, my Mid-2013 13" MBA is now 4 years old, but after taking it to a "Genius" bar and having them look at it (and two different chargers with which I've had this problem), I was actually shocked when they didn't take that as a perfect opportunity to upsell me a new Mac. Instead, they told me that it was still well-within its feasible life span. All hardware diagnostic tests passed with flying colours and the battery had only been through 50% of the acceptable charge cycles before they would deem it replacable under warranty. Of course, my warranty had long-expired by then anyway, but that's the reasoning that they used to suggest that I just stick with it.
That was roughly 6 months - 1 year ago (please excuse my spotty memory) and the problem has gotten worse. Now every time I plug in any charger, from any wall outlet, I have to fiddle with the MagSafe 2 adapter for anywhere between 30 seconds - 5 minutes to get the charging light to come on. This involves unplugging and re-plugging it in at the computer end, turning it 180 degrees, and manipulating the cord at various angles before a green light will eventually come on and turn to orange after 5 seconds or so. Over the last few days, I've noticed that this has gotten worse still in that the light will stay green for roughly a full minute before the computer/charger finally realises that the battery level is below 100%.
I haven't tried a SMC reset, nor the ludicrous hair dryer solution that worked for others. I will try those the next time it needs charging. But this is just such a frustrating issue that I thought I'd add my 2 cents to the conversation, in the hope that an Apple employee will eventually notice it and help us all who are still struggling (and will undoubtably struggle in the future) with this crazy problem.
I will also add that once I finally get the charger to work, the slightest move can (not always, but more-often-than-not) start the whole process over again, whereby I have to fiddle with the adapter to get it to start charging again.
I'm not an electrician, but I'm pretty sure that this is not an issue with the wall outlets or the wiring in my house or anything like that. How could it be, when every other appliance and device works flawlessly? I do use a lot of power boards, which usually have lots of other devices plugged into them, but I doubt that could be a cause for this. Even the Apple Genius that I spoke to denied that as a possibility.
To those who got this far in my post, many apologies for the long-winded rant. I just find this issue so utterly unbelievable and inexcusable that I'm at my wits end, and needed to vent to somebody who might care. I also really hope that if enough of us complain about this, Apple will take notice and fix their dodgy chargers that cost way too much (like all their products and accessories). Many thanks to those still reading, and best of luck :-)
<Edited by Host>
