MBP thinks it's charging but it's not

The OWC case is $130. That’s the cost of an entire 1TB portable SSD. Besides, I’d rather if I could actually boot up the OS and use the apps to get the data and settings I need.

Board repair STARTS at $300. That’s a lot of money to sink into a machine that was designed poorly, had power issues from the beginning, and eats chargers every few months. It has already had every component replaced. I don’t trust it. For the issue it has, even Louis R doesn’t have a 100% fix.

At the very least, I should be able to charge up the lithium cells manually with my bench supply. The only issue I foresee is the charging logic not knowing how it got charged and getting confused about the state of charge. But there must be some kind of reset procedure for that in the case of replacing batteries.

The replacement battery idea is a gamble. What if it's barely charged on arrival?

I have a few friends which have this series. They don't have the level of issues you appear to be having. I've replaced the batteries on two of them once each but given the heavy use 4 years is about all I would expect a lighter use person could get 5 to 6 years.

REAL Apple MagSafe chargers as far as I know don't have a high failure rate. I do see people who kill the cords as they don't treat them well and I often see people going cheap with the knockoff chargers which just like cheap gas can damage things and have a high failure rate! I see lots of issues with these chargers!

● Don't Replace Your MacBook Charger With a Cheap Knockoff

● OEM MagSafe Chargers vs Cheap Imposters: Teardown for Truth

● Lacking safety features, cheap MacBook chargers create big sparks

● FAKE Magsafe MacBook Chargers on eBay - Watch before buying a Mac Charger

As far as the stability of the 2014 15" MacBook Pro's - The systems I see are often ones which have been pushed to the edge doing photo or video editing, I've even burnt out a few mac's pushing them too hard my self.

The issue is the software improvements has exceeded the hardwares ability to support it! And of course we are using these better tools on older systems. Thats not the hardwares failure its our over expectations (use) on older gear.

There is a variation to my first answer which depends on access to a second MacBook which supports the same battery. Carefully removing your battery from your system and then use the other Mac as a surrogate to charge the battery.

You need to understand Lithium Ion batteries can't be charged straight up as the charge rate needs to be balanced by the batteries level of charge and temp. Its quite easy to damage them and they can fail quickly which can be dangerous!

Using a Mac systems charging logic as a surrogate is the safest way. Or, you use the MagSafe charger port via a bench power supply which is not likely to work here given what you've told us.

@danj

This MBP is on it's (at least) 4th genuine Apple charger. Given that they run hot enough to cook my breakfast, let alone hold in my hand without burns, this is not surprising. And I know I'm not the only one. I am well aware that the cords are made like sh*t, don't have proper strain relief and break from ordinary use. I learned this from my previous 2006 MBP. Of course they don't make the DC end detachable, because then they couldn't sell you a new $100 charger. For this reason, I take extra care with my chargers and even add my own strain relief.

5 to 6 years is terrible. My mother's iMac still runs after 14 or 15 years.