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Dell Recalls Millions of AC Adaptors 288

Posted by michael from the huh-huh-fire-fire-fire dept.
matgyver writes "Both CNET and CNN are reporting that Dell is recalling 4.4 million AC adapters worldwide. About 990,000 of those were sold to US consumers, 1.5 million to US businesses, and the rest where outside the US. The adapters were sold with laptops between 1998 and 2002 and included Dell's Latitude, Inspiron, and Precision laptops. The part numbers for the adapters are 9364U, 7832D and 4983D. Apparently the adapters run the risk of overheating and can be a fire and electrocution risk."
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Dell Recalls Millions of AC Adaptors More

Dell Recalls Millions of AC Adaptors

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  • Risky? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:06PM (#10471297) Homepage Journal
    Apparently the adapters run the risk of overheating and can be a fire and electrocution risk.

    Oh just great.
    (reaches for power supply)
    Now I have to retur-{{{{ZOT}}}}

    Slashdot UID #56 up for auction at Ebay -- again! Sale by family to help pay for electrical fire damage and getting the smell of crispy /. user #56 out of rug. Sale complete with charred remains of previous owner.

    • Ha! I was right! (Score:5, Funny)

      by paragon_au ( 730772 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:17PM (#10471470)
      Ha! And my friends called me an idiot when I keeped buying new batteries for my laptop instead of just recharging the old one.

      Once again, I was proven right in the end.

    • Re:Risky? (Score:4, Funny)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:33PM (#10471695)
      It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Power to the people."

      KFG
    • > > Apparently the adapters run the risk of overheating and can be a fire and electrocution risk.
      >
      >Oh just great.
      (reaches for power supply)
      Now I have to retur-{{{{ZOT}}}}

      It's worse than that.

      "For users in the State of California, USA:

      WARNING: Handling the cord on this product will expose you to lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling"

      When it catches fire or becomes a shock hazard, don't even think

    • Re:Risky? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:22PM (#10473214) Journal
      Slashdot UID #56 up for auction at Ebay

      Bah! The parent was just looking for an opportunity to flaunt his obscenely small UID.

  • Dude! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .thguorw.wodahs.> on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:06PM (#10471305) Homepage Journal
    You're getting a fire!

  • This probably explains......... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ARRRLovin ( 807926 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:07PM (#10471320)
    .....the 2 mainboard replacements I had done on my Inspiron 4150.

    • Dude! You're getting a pile! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mod_critical ( 699118 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:16PM (#10471461)

      It seems that Dell quality is at it again.

      Seriously, something like this happening by itself would not be a major deal, even the world's finest manufacturers have their share of problems (Firestone, Apple, SUN, etc.)

      But what really puzzels me, is that I have seen Dell to continuously put out the worst quality products over and over, and yet they remain a major player in the consumer computer market. My college switched three years ago from leasing IBM laptops to Dell, and the helpdesk just started to be swamped. There are about 2200 new laptops on lease every year. The first year we had Dell Latitudes over 1/4 of them needed locic board replacements because the network connector was only held onto the board by the contact soldering points, not mounted to the case and no mounting posts on the board. 1/8 of the one's this year have already had a hard disk replaced and we've had them for two months. Also about 400 of them have had to have their screens replaced in the last 3 years (from failure not student damage).

      This makes me wonder how Dell manages to be profitable (all these items were replaced under warranty) and continue to have a loyal client base (despire a much more busy, thus costly, helpdesk the college stays with Dell).

      • Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Blame Dell for the dead hard drives because, you know, they make the hard drives that they use.

        Oh, wait.
        • You're right, Dell doesn't have a choice of buying from:

          Larry's House of Decent Quality Hard Drives

          or

          Crazy Eddie's Discount House of Crap!

          It's not Dell's fault that Eddie had the lowest bid...

        • Well they don't make the displays or many of the other things on them that fail either, but they are responsible for the choices of those components. I'm just curious as to how those choices manage to keep them in business, I know I wouldn't by a Dell ever for any reason, because a week without a laptop because a part needs to be replaced would cost me far more than the value of the drive. So even though its covered under warranty it does me no good if I can count on it failing.

          • Dells are cheap because they save money on parts (volume, choice) and on integration costs (their industry-leading just-in-time manufacturing). They've made their business decision, and the markets tend to agree with it.

            That said, I've managed laptop fleets from Dell that have had greater than 100% failure rates. The solution? Warranties. Dell's on-site waranties are pretty good (their completecare line in particular). There's no need to be down for more than a day for a hardware failure. Less, if you want
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • "But what really puzzels me, is that I have seen Dell to continuously put out the worst quality products over and over, and yet they remain a major player in the consumer computer market."

        The consumer market is relatively stupid, and easily tricked with flash and glitter. The same exact question goes for Microsoft, as well as a lot of other consumer products that are sub-par, but they put enough advertising out that make it look "cool" that the consumers eat it up. If Consumers cared about quality and re

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:19PM (#10471500)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • insp 8100 conected to one of the affected units. still under warranty, still need to call dell to replace the mobo tho...

  • AC only? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jhon ( 241832 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:07PM (#10471323) Homepage Journal
    AC Adaptors? I wish DELL would recall their low-profile workstations. In one year, we've had a 50% HD failure rate. At two years, 90%. That's not an exaggeration. Yeah, they replace them quickly -- but it's a pain to remove and replace the HD and restore the system from an image. Yes, it's do-able, but when it needs to be done 2 or 3 times a month? Sometimes more? Come on! Dell refuses to acknowlege the problem -- they just happily replace the HD evertime it fails.

    I'm fairly certain it's a heat/ventilation problem with the case. I've got one I use for remote access in our server room -- I've left the case open. It's been running 24/7 for 2+ years.
    • Since leaving the case open normally makes correct ventilation more difficult, you may just have been lucky on that one. Else, there is a *huge* engineering mistake in the ventilation system of that model so keeping the case open is indeed a fix. I'd keep it open :)
      • The other thing could be in the server room it could be a good 10 degrees colder than the rest of the office. Where I work the lowest temperature that someone can set the AC to is 72 degrees, defaulting to 75 I think (digital thermostat with a 4hour override feature). However the server room has a 60 degree setting and no heater. Opening the case on a computer which is having problems over heating can help in the case of cheaply built PC's, I wouldn't think of it on our more expensive (well designed) mac or
        • Bingo. Our server room is set at 60. It FEELS like 55 -- but the damn little thermostat says 60...

          It's always fun when the girls come in to my 'office'...

    • Re:AC only? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you are talking about the SX series of optiplex systems then you just got bad luck. They go bad about as often as any laptop HDD would. Although the SX280s use a SATA HDD drive now that is just a desktop HDD so they should last a bit longer. The real problem is on the SX270s. The motherboards have a tendancy to get hot and the capacitors will bust and leak acid. I think they fixed that with a newer version of the motherboard, but almost all the original systems sold do not have the fixed motherboards. G
    • I know exactly what you mean. Dell just uses poor hard drives in almost all of its desktops. Most of the defective drives I have replaced from dells were Quantum Fireballs, and they have ALWAYS been failure prone. A couple others have been IBM Deskstars (does anyone remember the phrase Death-star?). I just can't imagine the drives going bad so often if they had used Good Seagate or WD hard disks.
      • Only one particular range of DeskStar drives had a high failure rate. The others have been pretty reliable in my experience. Strongly agree that Quantum Fireballs sucked. I have a stack of dead ones, and I shudder to think that I trusted some of those things with my data.

        WD used to seriously suck, but they've been pretty reliable for the past few years, from what I've seen.

        Seagate sucked until they bought Conner, around the 2GB mark. Ever since then, they've been among the best in the biz, IMHO. Co

    • I've had one HD in a low-profile Dell unit go bad at work after only about six months of use. Thankfully I am always been pretty vigilent about backups and not lost too much!

      In general we were having a problem with a lot of HD's dying here in other (Dell) computers.

      My Dell P450 I bought years ago has lasted quite a long time with no issue, I do think in recent years the Dells I've had at work have not been nearly as well built.
    • Do these "low profile workstations" use laptop style hard drives? Cause I'm have similar failure rates with the hard drives dell uses in their laptops.
    • We had a big problem with drive failures in last year's crop of Small Form Factor Optiplexes. In July '03, we received a shipment of 43 SFF Optiplex GX270s with 2GHz Celerons, 512MB RAM, on-board video, and 40GB drives from Maxtor (DiamondMax Plus 8). Over the months we had more and more drives failing, in April we started trying to get Dell to own up to the problem and eventually convinced them to send us replacement drives for all the machines who's drive had not yet failed.

      By late May, when we finally r
      • I thought so too, but I've had a number of failures on the replacement drives as well. Granted, not as bad as the maxtors... but still pretty high. Of the replacements (40 some odd... drives), 10 have failed over the last 18 months. That's why I still suspect a heat/vent problem. Perhaps it's a combination of the two?

        We had a large stock of 6 gig drives laying around and I dropped in a bunch of those last month -- if those fail, I'll have a better idea...

    • Re:AC only? (Score:2, Funny)

      by parcel ( 145162 )
      I've had so many problems with my dell system, I actually memorized the service tag #. It's been over a year since I even used that system, and that number is still burned into my brain. I was using it literally every month during the lifetime of that system (inspiron 8000). NEVER another dell.

  • grrrrr (Score:4, Informative)

    by FuzzzyLogik ( 592766 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:09PM (#10471343) Homepage
    Ok that's it. I'm never buying another dell again. I have a Inspiron 5000e which I bought a good 3 or 4 years ago. I got it and shortly afterwards there was a battery recall, since I bought 2 batteries for it I recieved two new batteries, but they sent me 2 more extra's. Fine by me really. Now that same laptop has a power adapter recall. The battery was recalled because it was possible for it to catch fire, now this problem. No more Dell's for me, in fact I might just sell this POS on ebay and bum the problems off on someone else. It's not even worth it anymore even with 4 batteries.

    For those who don't want to read the article, the link to the recall program is located at http://www.delladapterprogram.com
    • Every AC adaptor i have ever seen for notebooks get fucking hot. These adaptors cant be much worse then a typical one, since they are on the market for years and there have been no large series of burnings.
      You should rather be thankful that they give you new and improved stuff on the remote possibility that something bad could happen with the old ones.

    • Re:grrrrr (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Let me get this straight. You've had no problems with your laptop. They were kind enough to replace and double your batteries just to be on the safe side. Now they are willing to replace your adpator for free and you've had it with them.

      Many people I know have had serious problems with laptops. You've got a great one and you'll never buy from Dell again.

      No manufacturer is perfect. They've all had recalls. I prefer companies that do recalls to those that try to hide problems and lobby for tort refo

    • Re:grrrrr (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ethanms ( 319039 )
      Wait a minute... you bought a PC w/ 2 batts and they worked fine... no fires... Dell says /maybe/ they will catch fire... so here's two NEW batteries, plus ANOTHER two NEW battiees for your troubles...

      Now same deal w/ the PSU... "oops, might be an issue, we've had x out of x^20 fail, so we're going to replace them all rather then risk a $1b lawsuit when some guys family burns up due to this thing"...

      I'd say buy another Dell...

  • We got Dells (Score:5, Funny)

    by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:09PM (#10471348) Homepage Journal
    We got a load of dell laptops. That means the odds must be decent that the building I work in will catch fire and burn to the ground. Huh, something to ponder while I go make sure all the laptops are plugged in and charging.
    • Remember to stack all the power adaptors and all the laptops into a large pyre - er, pile - to help with natural heat convection. If you leave them evenly displaced about the room the heat won't move, instead staying around each laptop and power adaptor.

      I'm sure this will relieve you of any future problems with these Dell laptops.

      -Adam

  • I wonder if they're made the same guys who... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Graemee ( 524726 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:10PM (#10471363)
    made the HP & Compaq adapters that were recalled.
    • And somebody else posted about IBM having a problem recently too. And there are many recalls associated with batteries doing the same thing. Overheating and causing fires. Part of the problem is that this AC/DC conversion and charging of batteries is inefficient enough that a lot of energy is lost as...HEAT. Too much heat or poor ventilation or cooling or poor fire resistance, etc - you get stuff that burns and explodes. I also recently read that battery technology hasn't really progressed much over the p

  • I don't think this is a new problem. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RealAlaskan ( 576404 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:12PM (#10471386) Homepage Journal
    I had to return an inspiron AC adapter because it was smoking, back around 1998. Had the same problem with a zip drive adapter about that time, too, come to think of it.

    I wonder why it took them so long to get around to doing something about it? I guess that having equipment burst into flames (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit) dowsn't hurt sales.

    • I wonder why it took them so long to get around to doing something about it?

      Yup. The evidence kept disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

    • Re:I don't think this is a new problem. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:40PM (#10471798)
      "A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

  • Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:12PM (#10471395) Homepage
    You'd think they'd have a bit better luck working with technology that's been around since '86.

    1886, that is.

  • Gives a new meaning to: (Score:3, Funny)

    by clem9796 ( 725685 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:13PM (#10471400)
    Man, that new laptop is hot!

  • IBM too (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BaldGhoti ( 265981 )
    First IBM [slashdot.org], now Dell? A month apart? I'm betting there's a common part inside these that's failing--it's probably not just these two companies.
  • Welcome [klkntv.com] to [in-sourced.com] the [sony.net] club [electric-find.com]

    -- james

  • FYI (Score:3, Informative)

    by Fascist Christ ( 586624 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:20PM (#10471502)
    http://support.dell.com/support/batteryrecall/inde x.aspx/en/main?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

  • First Printers, now this... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rosewood ( 99925 ) <.rosewood. .at. .chat.ru.> on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:20PM (#10471508) Homepage Journal
    Ouch - Dell is getting hit by the recalls. I had to send back a few hundred printers that I had inherited in this job. Now Ill have a few dozen laptops.

    Im suprised the laptops themselves arent recalled. I can not use these things on my person as they are just too damned hot. My A64 notebook I can use with out trouble (warm, but not burned out hot). S-r-s-l-y.

  • Hmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by mostly water ( 771390 )
    Dell Corporate Espionage Director: 'Ok, we've gathered enough information - time to bring in the data collectors. Just make sure the recall extends well into the sectors we're interested in...'

  • Only those manufactured by "Delta" in Thailand (Score:5, Informative)

    by Derling Whirvish ( 636322 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:26PM (#10471588) Journal
    Not all AC adapters with those part numbers are affected. It involves only those manufactured by Delta Electronics in Thailand. I have a 09364U but it is manufactured by Astec in China and is not recalled.

    Go to this page [delladapterprogram.com] and see if yours are the ones actually recalled.

    • Delladapter.com is down.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by cbelt3 ( 741637 ) <cbelt @ y a h o o.com> on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:34PM (#10471723) Journal
      That didn't take long- Delladapter.com got its bad self slashdotted ! (Altho this time it prolly got the CNN effect.). You wonder about the thought process:

      Dell Manager: "Crap. We need to recall a load of AC adapters".
      Dell Intern: "No prob, Dude. I'll just set up a little webserver on this here Latitude CPi. Point to this one".
      Dell Manager: "OK, as long as it doesn't cost anything."
      Dell Intern: "Sweeet !"
      Laptop: Uh. Oh. Lots of connections. Need More Power......
      AC Adapter: ZZZt !

      CNN: "In related news, Dell's customer support web development building burned down today..."

  • Dell is missing an opporuntity here (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:26PM (#10471594)
    Imagine how many Dell branded fire extinguishers they could sell as add-ons to thier PC's!

    They could have a check-mark on the order page right next to the "extra hard drive in a box" option for when your desktop overheating finally takes out your HD (about six months in my case).

  • Complexity of building switching power supplies (Score:5, Informative)

    by angio ( 33504 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:28PM (#10471612) Homepage
    I just finished reading a pretty cool book (Troubleshooting Analog Circuits [amazon.com]) written by an engineer from National Semiconductor in 1990. His main job focus was on switching power supplies, and he commented several times in the book about the perils of underestimating the complexity of building one well, even with today's mega-modern power supplies and switching regulator ICs. Today's Dell power supply recall, and a few other recent examples, illustrates that point quite graphically.

    Even in our /.'d digital world, analog design is still important. Bummer, since I'm a software person... :)

  • My 9364U supplies were not made by "Delta" (so not in the recall batch).
    That doesnt mean they don't get hot as hell.
    Nor does it mean that I enjoy Dell blowing me off when I tell them you can burn your hands on them.
  • ...got one here.

    Do we have to return it, or just contact Dell with the serial numbers?

    (I'd check the site, but it's currently DOA.)

  • Obligitory Fight Club Reference (Score:5, Funny)

    by ARRRLovin ( 807926 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:34PM (#10471729)
    "A new laptop built by my company is shipped with a certain power supply. The power supply overheats and burns down an office building with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of power supplies in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

    "Which company do you work for?"

    "A major one."
  • Too bad they didn't contract out these units to a manufacturer that added in built-in fans like the AC adaptors on the VIA Mini-ITX models...
  • ... I ever had the pleasure of working with was a Compaq something-or-other back in 2000-01 timeframe. The thing had NO BRICK and only a slim power cord with a mini-three prong plug that fit quite nicely in the laptop bag without creating the bulk of a typical laptop power supply. I hate the bricks... such a nuisance.

    Then again, I guess if there was a problem with the power supply on that Compaq, they'd probably have to recall the entire friggin laptop to unweld the power supply from the motherboard/chassi

  • Stock drop? (Score:2, Informative)

    by nfsilkey ( 652484 )
    One of my co-workers, a former Dell employee from her earlier years in industry, commented on this story. "Thats what killed the stock some years back."

  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by El ( 94934 )
    I got a Dell laptop back in '98, and they recalled the AC adapter years ago... now are they recalling the replacement AC adapter? Also, who is still using these? By now the battery needs replacing. There is no USB or DVD drives available for these. The slots were PCMCIA and don't work with new CardBus cards (I tried). And the processors were 166Mhz max... so really at this point, it's a worthless piece of crap anyway. (I gave mine to a friend. Not a very close friend.)
    • They affect lots of latitudes and inspirons, really any laptop they made that had up through a pentium 3 processor. Yes, I own one; mine does have USB, and has a cardbus slot, and is much faster than 166mhz. And even if the battery is worthless now, that doesn't mean the rest of the computer is trash.

  • As a Macintosh user... (Score:5, Funny)

    by trudyscousin ( 258684 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:40PM (#10471805)
    ...who once had to endure one snide remark after another about PowerBooks being fire hazards, I suppose it can now be said that all laptop computers are cremated equal.
  • Some people had the link wrong. It is https://www.delladapterprogram.com/Main.aspx and running just fine for me.

  • Even besides that Dell AC adapters are Crap IMO (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:50PM (#10471912) Journal
    I'm on my 4th one since the rest all slowly stop working working. First you have to "jiggle" the cord, then it only works it if bent a certain way, then it just stops. My latest problem is not the cable, its the 3 power prongs in the actual laptop, something is loose beyond the pin in there and now it constantly switches from AC to battery.

    Of course it doesn't help that I have a shitty Inspiron 4000 series. Loose video cable behind the LCD which turns the screen Pink? Check. Mouse that goes crazy for no reason and can't be fixed? Check. Original Actiontec nic/modem which will NOT work at 100MB and is defective from the start? Check. Tech support which always refused to fix anything and just keeps insisting to run "Dell Diaganostics" over and over? Check. I'd sell this on ebay in a second but no way would I want to screw someone else that badly.

    I'm sure some people out there love their Inspirons and are on their original power cords, but I'm sure as hell not one of them.
    • Hmm....I4100 here.

      broken power cord (insulation/shield seperated at connector): check
      pink screen thing: check
      funky trackpad: check

      But you forgot:
      broken bezel and keyboard mounts from ~1ft fall onto plush carpet (when landing flat)

      having to jiggle the ethernet cable to get a link

      bad keyboard interface so two columns of keys in the middle stop working

      display that can't close securely

      weird squeeking sounds from the speakers
  • First Dell offshores their Tech Support to the far reaches of India. Then they have it come back to bite them since the ghosts of departed Union Carbide employees who worked in the same Indian provinces have doomed their battery and AC adaptor line.

  • It's not a bug, it's a feature! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mike Rubits ( 818811 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:55PM (#10472849)
    Stock up now for the cold winter ahead!
  • Dell must be using those adaptors to run the servers the recall is being run from as http://www.delladapterprogram.com/ [delladapterprogram.com] is giving a "Service Unavailable". Hope the fire department in Austin is ready for this...

  • Obligatory references: (Score:3)

    by Cervantes ( 612861 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @03:11PM (#10473763) Journal
    -"Dude, you're getting a D....ahhhhh! My arm is on fire! Ahhhh, the pain!!!"

    -"Dude, you're getting a skin graft!

    Ah yes, the new motto:

    Dell: Now burning more innocent children alive than Microsoft!

  • Safety marks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by owlstead ( 636356 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @07:49PM (#10476216)
    I've just counted the number of logo's on a Dell power supply; there are 20 logo's of testing organizatons for as many countries.

    What exactly do these organizations do? Not one of them took a look at the power supply design and said something in the line of: "you probably shouldn't do it like that"?

    Or is this one of those "lets switch components in the middle of production" stories?

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