Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Dell Laptops Still Exploding

Posted by Zonk on Mon Aug 27, 2007 03:47 PM
from the free-light-show dept.
Portables Power Hardware
bl8n8r writes "It 'looked like fireworks, which would have been cool had it not been in my house.' said Doug Brown of Columbus, Ohio. Brown, a Network Administrator, called 911 last week when the Dell 9200 laptop burst into flames in his house. Emergency response units included two pumpers, a ladder truck, a bamalance, the HAZMAT unit, and a battalion chief. When Doug phoned Dell to inquire about liability, he was asked if he had insurance. It's not clear if Doug's laptop is one of the earlier models recalled by Dell; a Macbook is cited in the article for allegedly burning down a house in Australia as well as another instance of a suspect Dell laptop burning out a pickup truck in Nevada. If the burning battery issues are going to continue to be a problem, who's going to be responsible for losses? Insurance companies, Laptop makers, Battery vendors, and consumer negligence could presumably be cited in all cases."
+ -
story

Related Stories

Submission: Dell laptops still exploding by bl8n8r (649187)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Dell Laptops Still Exploding 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Any word on... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sugapablo (600023) on Monday August 27 2007, @03:49PM (#20376113) Homepage
    ...what MacBook model went up in flames? (He types from his MacBook.)

  • Insurance (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gandalf_the_Beardy (894476) on Monday August 27 2007, @03:50PM (#20376115)
    This is what insurance is for though - the unexpected. Surely general household cover would be sufficient? As a matter of interest is it common to bill the houseowner for the fire departments response?

    • Re:Insurance - not the question (Score:4, Funny)

      by rubycodez (864176) on Monday August 27 2007, @03:57PM (#20376205)
      insurance not the issue, liability is. anyway, silly of guy to call Dell and ask. You get a lawyer and you sue their incompetent labtop-firebomb building asses.

      • Re:Insurance - not the question (Score:5, Funny)

        by MightyMartian (840721) on Monday August 27 2007, @04:23PM (#20376509) Journal
        Moon Crater, Afghanistan - Izur Abdul Bagdahallahabada carefully plugs in his newest incendiary device; a Dell 9200 laptop.

        "By the will of Allah, the infidels have provided the means of their own destruction." Bagdahallahabada says. "We must be careful, of course, that it does not burn down our own houses." he cautions. "My brother, may Allah give him dozens of greased up virgins in heaven, was using a Macbook, and it sent him, his son and a funny little fellow with half a nose flying."

        All over Afghanistan, crappy Dell laptops are being found, replacing chemical explosives and home-made gas bombs as the prime way to kill NATO forces. And it's getting worse, as this new, all-too-frightening technology is exported abroad. Just last week, three Iraqi politicians had their penises fried off when their Dell's overheated.

        "We like to install WoW on them." Bagdahallahabada explains. "We give it the infidel soldiers, who play these gay, decadent fantasy characters. We wait in the bushes, and kaboom!"

        NATO's current head of Afghan operations, Major General Sir Wilfred Ruck-sticks-oxbatten has seen it all too often. "We were enjoying a little porn at my command post, and the Mac laptop just exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions and burning off my bleedin' moustache. The chaps back in Edinborough claim they saw spikes on their seismometers.

        Indeed, exploding Dell laptops are causing another problem. The countless number of explosions are making tracking earthquakes nearly impossible. "We had a tech convention in San Francisco last week." said Dr. Bob Underwear, USGS scientist. "Christ, we thought the whole San Andreas fault was making a bee-line for Anchorage. One of my colleagues actually shit his pants, all because seventeen Dells tried to render a 3d graph in realtime."

        What the ultimate solution cannot be told. But Mr. Bagdahallahabada clearly feels there's no rush. "When all the world converts to Islam, then we'll make sure they buy HP."

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chirs (87576)
      Sure, you can make a claim to the insurance company. Next time your insurance renewal comes up, suddenly you lose the discount for having a clean record. For myself, a claim like this would probably end up costing $2000 in deductable and increased insurance rates over the next few years.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Achromatic1978 (916097)
          It does. Apply for a new policy. You'll be asked how many claims you've made, regardless of fault. And that number will affect your premium.

  • ban laptops from planes!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2007, @03:51PM (#20376125)
    if my dell explodes on a plane, is that a suicide bombing? I'm assuming that I'd be dead, of course.
  • A) What is a bamalance?
    2) This is Columbus, GA not Columbus, OH.

    • Re:Editors?!? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cooley (261024) on Monday August 27 2007, @04:07PM (#20376327) Homepage
      There used to be this funny audio clip circulating around of a 911 call (or a comedian pretending to make one, I can't remember which) where a guy hits a deer with his car. He puts the deer into his car (he's gonna use the meat) but it soon wakes up and kicks the shit out of him. He calls 911 from a pay-phone to request a "bambalance" (the rest of the call is equally eloquent).

      That is, I *hope* the guy is alluding to the old clip, and not seriously trying to spell "ambulance". It's possible, though, that in regards to your post above "2" answers "a"....

    • A) What is a bamalance?
      "bamalance" is a slang term that refers to a bomb or hazardous material disposal truck. It looks a bit like a cross between an ambulance and an armoured car. The "bam" in "bamalance" refers to the explosive properties of a bomb being disposed of, i.e. the laptop.
    • Now I know what the rock band Ram Jam was saying.
      Whoo-oa black betty, bamalance!
      Who-ooo-oa black betty ba,alance!
      [repeats a lot]

  • 'bamalance"?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by solafide (845228) on Monday August 27 2007, @03:53PM (#20376157) Homepage
    I want a ride in an bamalance, myself, I'll happily have my laptop explode to get a ride.
  • It's obvious the user here was overclocking his laptop.
  • Batteries (you know, those little packages of reactive chemicals?) have been bursting into flames ever since they were invented.

    In TFA it cites a couple of modern examples. How many laptop batteries are out there?

    Hardly a plague of battery burnin's.

    Reminds me of SARS -- you remember, that disease that killed a couple hundred people in 2003 -- which basically shut down Asia for 6 months. Everyone suddenly forgot that the regular old "flu" kills 100,000 people every single year.

    If we're gonna panic about "things that cause fatal fires" I'd be stomping on cigarette manufacturers before I went after the company that didn't even make the battery that caught on fire.

    Cue 200+ comments to the tune of "I used to trust Dell but now..."

    Can we get a new tune up in here?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ookabooka (731013)
      Your logic is flawed. I certainly expect a cigarette to cause a fire, so I'm not about to leave a lit one sitting on my desk full of papers. However, I'd think it would be perfectly reasonable to let my laptop sit next to some papers. Basically, Dell's laptops have an interesting tendency to spontaneously combust. . .it's not a freak accident, and not something that all laptops do. That is the reason that this is getting so much attention, no laptop should emit a small fireworks show and then burst into fla
      • >>Your logic is flawed. I certainly expect a cigarette to cause a fire, [but not a battery]

        Your science is flawed. I certainly expect high-density batteries to cause fires. Both because they have and also because of simple, general, chemical principles, the kind we should all have learned in high school.

        The question then becomes how many fires, and what I am saying is that the numbers are currently way too low for any conclusion besides that the technology has been, historically, extremely and almost
    • They don't explode they "vent with flame".
      The problem is that as battery density gets higher the danger from a failure gets higher. Put a dead short accros a D cell and it is no big deal. Put one across a LiION without a protection circuit and it is a big deal.

      • >>The problem is that as battery density gets higher the danger from a failure gets higher.

        Exactly correct. The problem is inherent in the technology.

        Couple that with trying to squeeze that battery into a poorly ventilated laptop interior (where you also gotta fit your DVD drive, your CPU, etc. etc.) and you would think we'd see these things going off like bombs every week!

        The fact that we don't is what I'm talking about...
    • Just because Dell didn't make the battery, doesn't mean they're not liable. Dell sold him a complete unit, which came with the battery in question (assuming he wasn't using a replacement battery, DNRFTA). Continuing the bad car analogies that roam the savage wastelands of Slashdot: if you bought a used car, under warranty, from a dealer, and a part broke that just happened to be a third-party part (happens often on used cars), would you be ok with the dealer telling you you're SOL? Yeah, I didn't think
    • I think that the reason that SARS only killed a couple of hundred people was that Asia got shut down for 6 months. The point was to keep the number a couple of hundred, instead of having it get to the 100,000 a year that the flu kills.

    • Re:Burst into flames != explode (Score:5, Funny)

      by Draek (916851) on Monday August 27 2007, @06:07PM (#20377731)

      Batteries (you know, those little packages of reactive chemicals?) have been bursting into flames ever since they were invented.

      which is another reason to use Sony's sugar-powered batteries. If the thing bursts into flames, at least you'll get a nice dose of caramel =D

  • Does the TSA still let Dell laptops on planes? (Score:4, Funny)

    by RichMan (8097) on Monday August 27 2007, @03:58PM (#20376223)
    seriously, it looks like they are more of a proven hazard than water

  • Let's be CLEAR on this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erroneus (253617) on Monday August 27 2007, @04:00PM (#20376239) Homepage
    It's all about the Sony batteries. It's misleading to say "Dell" or "Macbook." They (and many other makers) are using Sony batteries.
    • Yeah, let's be CLEAR. I mean, it can't be that the laptop drew too much current, or that the charger malfunctioned, or a thousand other things that can cause any battery to catch fire. And it's certainly not Dell's fault for not putting some safety circuitry in the system to shut down when the temperature started to go up. It's IMPERATIVE that we place blame solely on Sony even though there were likely dozens of factors, any one of which could have prevented the fire if were modified. After all Sony is the

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Mundocani (99058)
        I think you're right that there could be many causes, but given the problems in the recent past with Sony's batteries (the problem of them having metal fragments in them causing internal shorts and subsequent flame-outs), I don't think it's too much of a stretch to start out assuming the battery might be the source of the problem.

        Would over-temperature detection/shutoff prevent those shorts from destroying the battery, or is it a purely internal thing such that it would continue even if you took the battery
        • Thank you for confirming my point. Objective analysis not required. Prejudicial judgments are always better around here.
    • It is not just Sony it is the technology itself. It is inherently dangerous and all manufacturers so far have had recalls and safety incidents. Sony is simply the biggest manufacturer of Li-polymer cells so we get to hear about it most.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Headcase88 (828620)
      So in effect they outsourced their battery production to Sony. They're still responsible for the final product and they have chosen to continue using Sony batteries after several have exploded.

      I don't recall people having much patience for companies whose games used particularly bad DRM made by other companies, I think this falls in the same category. Similarly, If x outsources their tech support to shitty company y (to reduce costs), people will still blame x for providing shitty tech support.

      That said
  • Thank God no one actually had them on their lap.
    • Actually, most manufacturers, as far as I know, no longer refer to them as "laptops." "Notebooks" are the new tag for the computers that formerly sat on one's lap. I believe the change in name is to actually discourage users from using the notebooks on one's legs b/c of heat issues.

      I mean, notebooks today have a tendency to get H-O-T. Also explode.

  • Fragmented Drives Contributing to the Overheat? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2007, @04:01PM (#20376249)
    A client of mine asked me to fix his Dell laptop, which was overheating and shutting down to fix the problem. This was before the exploding batteries were in the news.

    First of all DO NOT turn off the automatic shut down of the laptop when the processor reaches a certain temperature to fix this problem.

    Deleting enough off the drive to defragment it fixed the issue and it stopped overheating. First I had to put the laptop on a metal barbeque frame so it would be cool enough and stay on long enough to defragment it.

    Kind of a scary task for your boss to give you now that I think about it... but this was months before it was on the news. I don't know if this is the same issue exactly but I wanted to bring it up.

  • If the burning battery issues are going to continue to be a problem, who's going to be responsible for losses? Insurance companies, Laptop makers, Battery vendors, and consumer negligence could presumably be cited in all cases.

    In these cases, it seems it would be an easy lawsuit. I would personally refuse to have my own insurance cover it as it is so clearly a product defect. And since both Dell and the battery manufacturers (Sony? Sanyo ? etc) all have deep pockets, it doesn't matter so much who to sue. Mi

    • Why bother having insurance then?

      If it were me, I'd file a claim with my insurance company, and then let them go after Dell/Sony/Whoever. The whole point of having insurance is to insulate you from the expense (both monetary and temporal) of dealing with unfortunate mishaps like this.

      Believe me. The insurance company isn't going to foot the bill for your claim if somebody else is responsible. They'll fight the battle. And since you're paying them to do that, why would you do it yourself?
  • If you have fire insurance (homeowner's or renter's) then they should cover the laptop and any damage to your house or other belongings, subject to the deductible. The insurance company may go after (subrogate) Dell.

    Most companies play hardball and tell you to get lost, the only thing you can do is sue them, and then they will complain about people suing them. As they say, shit happens, but if it turns out the manufacturer knew, or reasonably should have known, that the batteries pose an undue hazard, the
    • As I mentioned in reply to another post, the insurance will certainly cover it. However, the deductable and increased insurance rates for the next 5 years or so could easily be a couple thousand dollars.

      Dell and Sony are clearly negligent here...so why should the laptop owner suffer financially?

  • Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian (840721) on Monday August 27 2007, @04:02PM (#20376263) Journal
    Consumer negligence? How is the consumer negligent if these guys keep manufacturing batteries that go supernova? I own a low-end HP laptop, and it can get incredibly hot as well. It now has to be sent in for servicing, I suspect that the temperature eventually fried the board. It's under warranty for another couple of months, but I have to fork out over $200 for a year's extended warranty on it. For those kinds of prices, I ought to be leasing them. The growing popularity of laptops have made the manufacturers lazy. They're cutting corners, producing substandard products that are not only more prone to failure, but may very well be dangerous. They'll argue "We're trying to keep the prices down", but that's the same argument Mattel uses for using substandard Chinese factories to produce toys that can potentially poison millions of children. Frankly, I think the time has come to seriously bone-up consumer protection laws. Massive fines, the industry paying for government inspections, and the like. Manufacturers have proven incapable or unwilling to adequately protect the consumer, and we should start nailing their bottom lines severely, so that the fucking shareholders, who seem eager to profit from the crap their companies produce, aren't feeling more directly the pain. Fining Dell or Apple a few hundred million dollars the first time, and then quadruple the second time, will probably raise the price of laptops, but at least we won't be sent out overheating crap.
  • all the flameout issues are with lithium ion batteries.

    it may just be that we can't manufacture these things more than one at a time with the care required to keep all that energy density safely in the case.

    it happened to Edison, too... only I think it was something like an iron/sulfur battery they couldn't make more than one of.

  • Self Destruct Could be a Useful feature... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MrSteveSD (801820) on Monday August 27 2007, @05:20PM (#20377147)
    as long as long as you can control it, and as long as it has a cool sounding countdown.

    • Re:Not just a macbook (Score:4, Informative)

      by bkr1_2k (237627) on Monday August 27 2007, @04:03PM (#20376277)
      Actually the enclosures were designed to specifically take the heat away from the components to a [metal] frame that had a larger surface area. It felt hotter to the user but kept the components inside cooler than a plastic case would have.

    • I have a Dell Latitude D810 and when I'm playing Warcraft if I don't limit the CPU speed to 1.6Ghz or lower the CPU temp climbs to 190F (according to gnome's CPU temp monitor).
      I think this is a combination of the heat produced by the CPU and the ATI GPU, cause it doesn't get so hot when I'm not doing 3D graphics.

      That doesn't matter, dude. The CPU is made of sand. Sand won't burn no matter how hot it gets. In fact, some people use sand to put out fires. This problem is related to the batteries.

      On the oth

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.