Trusted
About 18 months ago I replaced the original 85W MagSafe charger that broke with a brand new one on Trade Me that was supposedly genuine, but I've always had my suspicions that it's fake or partially fake. I've seen plenty of fake MagSafe chargers, and the casing on this one, even when compared to the original, seems very legitimate, however there are the following issues with it:
-Amber charger LED much dimmer than the green fully charged LED
-Ground loop issue when using headphones with the Mac, even when the charger is using the grounded cable, not the shorter ungrounded plug
-Very loud interference on AM radio (heard through the new radio) which makes tuning AM stations near impossible
-Impacted FM tuning, some stations can still be picked up, but the tuning and volume fluctuate very annoyingly.
Basically, the radio is unusable when the charger is plugged in (this is in the same room, my bedroom), but works perfectly as soon as I unplug the charger from the socket.
All these signs point to either the whole charger or some components of it being fake/non-OEM/poor quality (the Trade Me auction said it was 'reconditioned' if I recall, although it had plastic on it and looked brand new).
I know many of you would say just buy a new charger, but I'm a broke 16 year old with no cash to spare :((
Can anyone suggest something I could do to reduce the interference other than replacing the charger or unplugging it every time I want to use the radio, also I can't move either any further apart, they're both on opposite sides of a room.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm short of ideas.
