This paper considers the problem of adaptive fault-tolerant guaranteed cost controller design via dynamic output feedback for a class of linear time-delay systems against actuator faults. A new variable gain controller is established, whose gains are tuned by the designed adaptive laws. More relaxed sufficient conditions are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), compared with the corresponding fault-tolerant controller with fixed gains. A real application example about river pollution process is presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.