Hello FTers,

My Turkish friend bought a MacBook in the US last month. He took it with to Turkey (where he lives).

He says he is unable to charge his MacBook. Do you think it has something to do with the electric current there? This MacBook was made to work on 110 volts, but now it's permanently plugged into 220. To me, something has to be happening to the circuitry. The reason I think this is because....

He had an HP laptop that had the same problems and the laptop would incredilbly hot. And...

He had iPhone where the screen when black except for this one dot in the upper right hand corner of the screen and the iPhone got incredibly hot and now is not working.

He said he's using a converter.... but if it's the one I'm thinking of, it's pretty old and shoddy looking...

what your experience and what should he do?

Thank you for your help.

David

AFAIK all Apple chargers are universal and should not require a converter. If your friend is using a converter, this may be the culprit.

I have never had any troubles with my iPod and iPad chargers. (Or my Nikon charger or my HP charger.)

Turkey uses the same electrical plugs as are used in Europe and elsewhere in the middle east. You should not use a converter since both the MacBook power adapter as well as the iPhone wall charger both are universal voltage capable so it should work fine with Turkey's 230 volt 50 Hz system. The only thing you will need to use it in Turkish wall outlets will be a plug adapter to convert flat blade North American plugs to European style two pin style plugs.

To add to what RCyyz and weekilter said ...

Voltage converter? If yes, that is the problem. All he needs is a plug converter for Turkey. Most (virtually all) electronics are universal devices. They will say something like 110v - 240v, 50hz - 60hz on them if they are universal. You just need a plug converter for universal devices.

I think he just needs the standard European plug converter, which converts the US style 2 prong (or 2 prong plus ground pin) plug to the standard European 2 round pin plug. Apple even makes a set of converters that let you slide out the one on the power wart and slide in the one you need. Or you can buy cheap universal plug to European plug adapters inexpensively from places like dealextreme.com

Here's the old Apple world travel set (included power adapter is pre-ipad version, but that's not the part he needs):
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.37208

Universal to Europe plug adapter:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13525