2017 Macbook Pro 15" with Touchar won’t charge
So this is a bit of a lengthy ramble about my troubles with my Macbook and apple care.
Last December I leased a 15" Macbook Pro with Touchbar to my company. Everything seemed fine for about the first month, but then I started having issues with charging. The macbook simply didn't accept the original charger. Sometimes it played the charging sound and flashed the indicator in the menu bar, but usually it did nothing.
A co-worker has a 12" Macbook without touchbar that also has a usb-c charger (although smaller) so I tried charging my Macbook with his charger and it charged just fine. Also his Macbook charged with my charger, at least for the few minutes that I tested. Weirdly my Macbook charged with my charger and his usb-c cable and his Macbook wouldn't charge with his charger and my usb-c cable. I went to the leasing company and explained the issue and they sent the cable to be "serviced" by the local Apple authorized service provider here in Finland (mcare) and gave me a new one. Later the cable came back from being serviced and I returned my replacement cable. The problem seemed to be solved for a week or so.
The next time the problem occurred it seemed that my charger was completely dead. It wouldn't charge even my co-workers Macbook. Mcare confirmed it was dead and I got a new one. This happened a couple of times until they took my Macbook in to be serviced. They ran diagnostics and test charges on it for a week and found nothing. I was told it was fine, but within a week or so the issue returned. This happened multiple times. One time they blamed iStat menus for interfering with charging so I uninstalled it. No difference. They are starting to give up because they can't find anything and Apple hasn't acknowledged any problem.
They are starting to blame the electrical wiring in our office block. It is an old building, from the early 1900s, but it has been newly renovated and nobody else is having any issues. I'm the only one with a new model 15" Macbook Pro though. The older 15" Macbook Pros with magsafe don't have any problems. Also, my Macbook has the same charging problems at my home which is in a 10 year old building so the wiring should be up to spec.
This has been going on for months now. I got some temporary relief by ordering an unofficial magsafe-to-usb-c adapter (https://elecjet.com/products/anywatt). With that adapter I can use my old charger and get the Macbook charged although more slowly. Sometimes even that fails and the charging seems to start and stop intermittently.
Recently the usb-c port that I use to charge died completely. I took the Macbook to be service and they replaced the motherboard and the entire top cover (because of the keyboard issue). I had been hopeful that with a new motherboard this problem should go away. Maybe I just had a uniquely faulty motherboard, but no such luck. When I got the Macbook back I tried plugging in the new charger. The menubar icon flashed briefly, but it still wouldn't charge with the original charger. The only thing that works is the older magsafe charger and the adapter.
What can I do? My Macbook seemed to charge with the co-workers 67W charger but was that just temporary? I didn't want to try it for too long because I was afraid that my Macbook would kill that charger as it had a couple of others. But maybe the lower wattage would be better? The adapter certainly is wasting power as heat, I can barely touch it.
submitted by /u/leethaksor
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