Alan Cox's Exploding Laptop 339
Bowie J. Poag writes to mention a page put up to commemorate the explosion of Alan Cox's laptop. From the article: "Alan was on the other side of the room from the laptop. I was elsewhere. He yelled out, I ambled towards the room in my own good time, and then I heard 'Fire! Real fire! Call the fire brigade, now!' and I speeded up a bit. From Alan subsequently, I gather there was an explosion and flying pieces of laptop, and a fireball, and a couple of fires started where (presumably) boiling battery landed, and one fragment smashed an LCD monitor. And then there was smoke and smell (there is still smell) and smoke alarm wailing and firemen and sirens and paramedics (happily unneeded) and police and a man with a notebook asking questions for the fire report.'"
His own fault... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:His own fault... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps he should have bought his battery in shrinkwrap from a reputable dealer rather than getting an after-market battery off of eBay? Even if it's a "genuine" IBM, for all he knows he ended up with a recall unit that somehow (*cough*) got resold on the open market.
There are some things you DO NOT trust after-market vendors for. One of those things happens to be a highly explosive Lithium Ion battery pack. There are enough problems with the first party units to give pause to anyone even considering third party units. Getting off of eBay? Now that's just asking for trouble.
Re:His own fault... (Score:4, Insightful)
ya know why? (Score:3, Insightful)
that's also the difference between the world of walmart, and the world of macys....
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Re:His own fault... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's my thoughts: Nokia bought a batch of faulty batteries bud didn't want to admit it. Therefore they said the batteries weren't theirs, even though they coulod not make the distinction.
The real reason you should be buying laptop batteries directly from the manufacturer (or in this case, the vendor: Apple, Dell or IBM) and not a reseller, is that the Li-ion batteries start degrading as soon as they're manufactured due to stresses in the crystal matrix. It does not matter much, therefore, how the batteries are used, for they will only last up to three years before cells will break. Thus, you want the batteries as fresh from the factory as possible, which is why you buy them from the vendor and not a reseller, because the turnover speed at the vendor is greater.
Explosions are quite common to high-capacity batteries. It's the energy, you see.
B.
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Re:His own fault... (Score:4, Funny)
Just to clarify, this being Slashdot, the "valuable parts" being referred to are his PDA, and extensive collection of Star Trek trading cards.
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Anyway, I'm going to buy stronger card protectors just in case.
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What are you smoking??? The Thinkpad is one of the most reliable laptops in the market, even since the brand got bought by Lenovo. His own fault, yes. For putting an unreliable battery in. Even a Panasonic Toughbook (arguably the most reliable laptop out there) would explode if the battery you attach to it explodes.
Dell just recalled a ton of their batteries for this very reason,
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Yeah... now that I read your post again, looks like I may have missed a little sarcasm... it's 3 AM and I tend to get a little preachy this time of night. Off to bed for me, before I say anything else I can't edit
Re:His own fault... (Score:5, Funny)
*woosh*
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I'm not sure why you say that. If Apple laptops are not "business machines," then why is it so common to see them being used for business? What quality are you referring to that makes them not suitable for business?
Re:His own fault... (Score:5, Funny)
*Yes, it's actually in the OS.
Re:His own fault... (Score:4, Funny)
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"
Fire - exclamation mark - fire - exclamation mark - help me - exclamation mark. 123 Cavendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours truly, Alan Cox
"
Re:His own fault... (Score:4, Informative)
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D/I/W
Customer
D/I/W
Customer
D/I/W : "In case of fi
Re:His own fault... (Score:5, Funny)
Then the insurance guy says... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Then the insurance guy says... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, but I believe HP has a trademark on that phrase, as I was so exquisitly told by the circuit city folks when I indicated that the HP5320dv I'd just bought would probably have linux on it in less than 48 hours. I picked up the warranty form and said, well, I just guess the lawyers will have to sort that out now won't we? It did get FC5 installed as soon as I could make backups to dvd's, and works great with FC5 on it except for the broadcom radio in it.
In any event, this, because its Alan Cox's machine, may well be the most famous blowup yet.
I don't know what type of battery is in my HP, but its been very well behaved so far. That knocking sound? Thats me, knocking on the wood of the tabletop here.
--
Cheers, Gene
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Also, the manufacturer's name is at the far right of the printed side of the battery (mine seems to be LG).
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--
Cheers, Gene
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No worry (Score:2)
Alan Cox... (Score:2, Informative)
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If you're a linux-nerd, you might know it (I happen to fall in that category as well as a few others), but it's actually helpful for many to know who Mr. Cox is, especially since the exploding laptop might be of interest to nerds of other genre's (say, hardware-nerds or politico-nerds for the lawsuit area of things).
Whomever modded th
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Real source of "info" on Alan Cox (Score:5, Informative)
Now where have I read that phrase before? *googles* oh yeah...
Dude, at least site the source of your data (and more complete information at that): wikipedia page for Alan Cox [wikipedia.org].
Re:Real source of "info" on Alan Cox (Score:4, Funny)
For those that aren't aware, plagiarism is the practice of dishonestly claiming original authorship of material which one has not actually created, such as when a person incorporates material from someone else's work into his own work without attributing it. Within academia, plagiarism is seen as academic dishonesty, and is a serious and punishable academic offense.
Re:Alan Cox... (Score:5, Funny)
Data Recover (Score:2)
Re:Data Recover (Score:5, Informative)
At the risk of being arrested and taken to a home for the criminally obvious, don't breathe any of the smoke from an exploding battery. Some formulations burn into chemicals that you don't want anywhere near you, such as hydrofluoric acid [internatio...eryinc.com]. It's not that strong an acid but it's remarkably destructive to flesh. If you do get a whiff of smoke go to the emergency room even if you feel OK.
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I used to work with HF in my lab when I was a grad student. Let me tell you, you start to follow lab safety procedures REAL careful like.
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It's not that surprising. (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe this will convince more people to take the battery out of the computer unless they need it.
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If you were wondering if NiMH was competitive... (Score:3, Informative)
Li-Ion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery [wikipedia.org]
Energy/weight ~150 Wh/kg
Energy/size ~250 Wh/L
NiMH:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride
Energy/weight 60-?? Wh/kg
Energy/size 100 Wh/L
My laptop gets a couple hours of battery life with Li-Ion. It looks like I'd get about 40% of that with NiMH -- not that appealing. I don't think we'll be turning back any time soon.
I just hope that the next generation of battery technolgy is inherently less likely to explode.
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We can but hope. Batteries are devices that concentrate chemical energy in a form that can be easily (and quickly, for high current applications) released as useful work.
On the other hand, explosives are devices that concentrate chemical energy in a form that can be easily and quickly released as useful work.
Why do you think the control electronics are so important to a laptop battery? Because if you short
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Apparently those control electronics [slashdot.org] werent so good in the first place, and the first thing that *should* be done on a 600 series is to get a good battery with it. Trusting the previous batteries on these things is a cointoss now.
Re:If you were wondering if NiMH was competitive.. (Score:2)
The current standard notebooks have the power consumption of consumer desktops that were made a decade ago, so it's not hard to imagine that battery technology had to change to keep up with the power hungry notebooks. If you are willing to take a somewhat slower notebook
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So it's roughly 8.5" x 11" (A4 for the metric world)? Because, you see, the term "notebook" was specifically inaugurated for the subclass of laptops the approximate size of -- get this -- a notebook. With the ones even smalled than that being "subnotebooks".
Laptop is an unfortunate consumer-ism
No, it's a manufacturer-coined name for the class of machine small enought to fit on the lap and powered by batteries, going back to the advertising for
Re:If you were wondering if NiMH was competitive.. (Score:2)
I'm not a chemist, but I don't think that's possible. The battery stores its energy in the chemical bonds of its components (electrolyte and possibly the electrodes?). Batteries with larger capacity in the same space == more reactive chemicals. These recent fires demonstrate just how much energy is locked up in these modern batteries.
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Not going to happend. The majority of a battery is chemical substance that will release its stored energy if asked to do so. The only thing preventing these chemicals from releasing energy too fast is the onboard control logic in the battery and on the mainboard.
Throw in companies that tries to save a dime for each produced unit and are willing to sacrifice security for money and you get a deadly mix of ingredienc
Laptop? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Laptop? (Score:5, Funny)
they aren't designed to be used on laps or any other surface
Drat. Now I'll have to go shopping for a surface-less table. Perhaps "Klein Bottles-R-Us" has what I need...
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Did Sony know about the batteries? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does Sony "cherry-pick" the A-grade batteries for their own use and send the B-grade and lower ones to their clients?
If so, what kind of liability issues does that raise. Sony HAS done some questionable things in the past knowingly.
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Riiiiiiiight, sure they have. Do you expect me to believe a multibulliondollar international corporation would be so stupid as to do something as underhanded like distribute under-tested batteries or stealth-installer-rootkits on music CDs? Pfeh. Next thing you'll try and tell me Ford made exploding cars...
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Ahhh, here we are.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a3f27852c0f.h
Re:Did Sony know about the batteries? (Score:4, Funny)
If anyone needs me, call the CIA's secret prison administrators.
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Question: With all of the exploding batteries lately (Apple, Dell, Toshiba, IBM/Lenovo (possibly), etc. Have you seen any reports of Sony laptops exploding?
Yes. Back in August, a 5+ year old Sony Vaio caught fire [go4go.net] at this year's US Go Congress [gocongress06.org], it was in the strong player (dan-level) room, and disrupted play for some time due to the need for evacuation from the fumes. Fortunately, at the time nobody was playing at that particular table when it went off.
Beowulf Clusters (Score:3, Funny)
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It's a bomb big enough to blow off your Beowulf?? oh..wait..cluster
Wait 'til the FAA sees this... (Score:4, Insightful)
What am I going to do on my flight to Germany now?
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It would also have the benfit of getting you active and would help to prevent a DVT on a long haul flight.
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I'm still waiting for airlines to install power sockets. I've flown hundreds of flights around the US on several airlines in
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Phew, that was close (Score:3, Funny)
IBM Tech Support (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
IBM Tech Support
Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
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This is good news, everyone (Score:3, Funny)
"unexploded" batteries (Score:5, Funny)
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When they fix this problem, laptop batteries will have a warning sticker that says 'inexplodable'.
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FS: Two unexploded laptop batteries cheap!
Oh noes! It's the Machines War! (Score:2)
Well, the geeks, anyway. Quit buggering with computers, you guys!
Maybe it was a screensaver? (Score:2)
The Devil himself against us (Score:2)
how long? (Score:4, Interesting)
Have there been any fatalities yet? (Score:2, Interesting)
IBM's New Laptop Hardware: Exploderometers (Score:2)
Is his diary still in Welsh? (Score:3, Informative)
That's the silliest thing I ever knew. I used to read it, but now he's effectively cut it off for the non-Welsh speaking world.
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Re:Epidemic? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Epidemic? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like, hey dude! You got one HOT De// (Score:4, Insightful)
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So, if someone does get injured by an exploding laptop and can show that a harder case would have been a rea
Re:I was worried for a sec... (Score:5, Funny)
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4) Your computer is full of dust.
Every 6 months or so, I take the computers outside and blow out the "Ghost Turds". I have a fairly dusty house, and when they are full of "Dust Bunnies", I know by the fact that my temp-controlled fans kick up speed at inappropriate times.
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Don't overlook the obvious. The CPU is too hot. Common causes, Lint in the heatsink, dried out oil causing slow fan RPM, bubbles formed in heatsink grease reducing coupling, Once overheated CPU now less effecient, or simular reduction of cooling or more heat generated items.
The MS patch is a good theory. I know my IBM laptop runs cooler after I loaded Ubuntu. CPU idle now can drop to under 2% instead of about 20%.
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Besides, 'Fire Department'? What's that? 'Department of Fire'? Hey, sounds like a fantastic place to work! Legal arson!
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Not if he's a mobo-sexual.
Re:wouldn't it be ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Alanis, it would be a coincidence. It would be ironic if he was working on a battery status monitoring program when it exploded.
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Kent Brockman, obviously.
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Its a serious problem, but possibly not for that reason. What happens if the estate of Alan Cox falls into the hands of his hypothetical evil lawyer brother who, realising that large chunks of the Linux kernel are in Alan's name, has a go at earning money from it.
I know that this can't happen the way the GPL is supposed to work, but I think it has to be considered as a risk that the GPL has never really been attacked by
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As an example: If Apache hasn't improved much in the last couple years, then I'd say they are in trouble. Their source code may be clean and nice, but getting hit with the experience of vi and httpd.conf is bound to scare-off budding sysadims and web coders; people who might otherwise take an interest in the innards of their web server given some time.