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I have a MacBook Pro late-2012 model. And my cable started showing symptoms of fraying. So I ordered an offbrand cable from Amazon with good reviews and it arrived today and I tried it and the Mac recognized that it was getting power but the percent won't go up it's stuck at 95% but when I click on the battery icon in the status bar it says Battery Is Charged same thing with the original MagSafe but I just noticed this behavior now. But with the MagSafe it would reach 98% sometimes and stop other times it would go to 100.

Should I just ignore this or do something?

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It is common for the Macs battery to stop charging around 93-98%. It does it to prolong the overall life of the battery. Plus, your battery will have some wear and tear now depending on how many charge cycles you have used up.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1446#Troubleshooting

But if your MagSafe adapter is charging to 98% consistently and the off brand one is not, then the new cable is a suspect. Charging on Apple devices depend on several factors and there is some intelligence built into the battery IC which I believe communicates with the adapter to tell it when to stop charging. I am not sure if an off brand adapter plays well with the battery IC.

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  • I agree about off brand adapters. If you can, take the computer and adapter to an Apple store. Failure to fully charge may simply be a sign of the battery's age. The computer monitors the battery and will tell you when the battery needs replacing. However, I would ask Apple whether the adapter should work. If so, the adapter maker should be saying so, and have Apple's blessing to brand the product with Mac Compatible or whatever. Otherwise, the product is 'not merchantable'. If the seller gave you any other impression, they must give your money back. In Australia the law says as much.
    – D A Vincent
    May 15, 2014 at 8:36
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    I really don't think Apple has licensed the Magsafe design to third party vendors. I remember a vendor (cant recall the name) of portable Macbook battery chargers who had to buy actual magsafe adapters and cut off their magnetic ends for use with their chargers!
    – bobbyalex
    May 15, 2014 at 8:46
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    Got it: The vendor was Sanho Corporation who sells the HyperMac batteries.
    – bobbyalex
    May 15, 2014 at 8:53

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