This led me to suspect an intermittent connection was the culprit, and it was quite a poor one at that the high resistance leading to the heat issue.

The other, was that even when it would charge, the connector would become very hot. The first was that the charger would only function if the cable was held just so, in exactly the right orientation. However, it’s not the easiest to fix. When the charger began failing, I noticed two symptoms. This connector has many benefits, such as quick release in the event someone trips over the cable, and the fact that it can be plugged in without regard to orientation. Unlike most PC manufacturers, who rely on the humble barrel jack and its readily available variants, Apple liked to use the Magsafe connector on its Macbook line. Such was the case when I found myself face to face with a failed Macbook charger, and figured it’d be a simple fix. It’s usually the connector that goes first. Combine this with fairly lightweight design and it’s not uncommon for a laptop charger to fail after a few years. They’re repeatedly plugged and unplugged, coiled up, stuffed into bags, thrown around, and just generally treated fairly poorly.

Mac charger replacement cable