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macbook air won't charge & no light on charger

I charged 2011 Macbook Air yesterday and it was fine last night and again this morning. Then, when it was running low on battery today I plugged in the wall charger (which is a new one I got in July) and suddenly my screen went black and the charge light wouldn't come on. So, I unplugged the charger and then my screen came back. Plugged in charger again and screen went black again. I restarted my computer and still same problem. I even shut down and rebooted but same problem. Of course I didn't back up my files so I scrambled to transfer some to our portable hard drive but I was on reserve power and the transfer did not complete. So, now I have a dead computer. I even just tried the charger of a friend with a MB Air but her charger didn't work for me either. So, now I have just plugged my charger in with the hope that it will mysteriously start working again -still no light showing.

And ideas? I live in southern Mexico and closest Apple Store is in Mexico City...not very close to me :-(

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 20, 2012 1:02 PM

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Posted on Dec 20, 2012 1:25 PM

I cleaned the power connector and the socket...and I also tried a friend's magsafe adaptor (hers works fine to charge her Macbook Air) but no luck with that either.


This is so strange because I have never encountered any problems before and it charged absolutely fine yesterday.


Is there any way to connect the Air to an iMac and try to charge it that way...or connect just to access my files so I can transfer them off.


Thanks for your help!

59 replies

Apr 3, 2016 9:14 AM in response to JohnnyCotia

To everyone 🙂


Thank you very much for all the excellent posts on what to do, when one´s Mac Book charger suddenly doesn´t charge anymore. I read through all your comments, and having checked that everything was clean and properly connected + having tried to re-start my Mac, I thought that I might as well give it a go with heating up the charger. My charger stopped working, after I had travelled with on an a/c train for more than 24 hours. I thus figured that heating up the charger might be the answer. And anyway, I was far away from any kind of technical assistance when this happened. I had no access to hair dryers or heaters at the time. But desperately needed my Mac for charity work. So I tried sitting on it for several minutes, in direct contact with the skin, to try to heat it up as much as possible. And it worked:) !


Next time it needed charging, again it didn´t work. So I tried the same method, and again after a few attempts, it worked. I had this trouble with the charger for around 4 days. Eventually, I decided to simply leave the charger plugged in, despite the computer being fully charged, so that it would keep charging for a longer period and the charger would become nicely warm for a longer period of time. I figured, maybe there was somehow some moisture inside it. I don´t know, but it worked, and I haven´t had this problem for the last month.


Thanks everyone 🙂

Jul 31, 2016 9:29 AM in response to silveroak

I had this problem too. I reset the SMC and it didn't do anything. I flipped the charger at the outlet and it did nothing either. Finally, I flipped the adapter plugged into my Mac. Boom! Started charging immediately.


Not sure if I'm the anomaly there or if all chargers are like that. But hey, it's charging and working now, and as long as it's doing that, this girl has no complaints.

Aug 6, 2016 8:07 PM in response to silveroak

Hello all,


After you reset the SMC and log back in, give your Mac a second to realize that it's been reset- mine didn't begin charging immediately after I reset it. It took a good ten, fifteen, maybe more, minutes. Now it is charging as usual. Second time I've had to do this, and, while mildly inconveniencing, it's much better than buying a new unit entirely. 🙂


Cheers!

Aug 7, 2016 3:31 PM in response to silveroak

My sister had this same problem with her MacBook. It would not turn on and the charger would not light up when plugged in. Interestingly enough, if she plugged a different MacBook into the charger for a few seconds, the charger would once again work on her MacBook.


The solution was to leave the MacBook open for several days. I think it was in a "deep sleep" of some type. After 3 days of leaving the MacBook open, I was able to plug in the charger and start the computer.


I know it sounds unlikely, but this worked for us. Our second choice was going to be to take off the bottom of the laptop, unplug the battery, plug it back in, then try it again.

Aug 9, 2016 9:04 AM in response to silveroak

UPDATE AGAIN


I don't think resetting the SMC is the solution all the time. I woke up today to find my Mac not charging again. Then I remembered that it's the middle of summer and I have slept in AC all night long, with the AC still running. My Macbook itself wasn't cold, but the charger was. I put it under my arm for a few minutes (about 10), and then plugged it in again. Voila, problem solved!


If this happens again, I'll run through all the solutions I tried so far to see which one works again, and I'll continue to update here!

macbook air won't charge & no light on charger

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