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IBM To Repair Smoking Monitors
Rio writes "A local6.com story says IBM is recalling to repair 56,000 G51 and G51t computer monitors because the circuit board can overheat and smoke, posing a fire hazard. IBM has received several reports of monitors overheating and smoking, including one report of minor property damage, according to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Comission." And I thought all that smoke was just my mobo overheating.
I'd like one of those monitors! I'll find myself some dremel and a steel girder to create the first monitor/grill combo ever! Steak anyone?
Hate me!
If only tobacco companies would be as obliging!
"IBM G51: The hottest monitor available!"
Hmm, maybe it wasn't the pyro after all, maybe Great White just set-up some IBM monitors in the back...
When right next to the article on the monitors, is this:
Man Who Allegedly Ate Cat's Tail Ruled Insane
and
Thousands Flock To See Gold Toilets
As long as they go outside to do it, I don't care.
Will we be seeing those lame "truth" ads lambasting IBM and their nicotine laced monitors? Oh wait...
Proof that where there's smoke, there isn't always fire.
Can't they just *cough* *cough* patch it?
*cough*
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
First IBM hard drives, now IBM monitors. What's next to kick the bucket?
how old are these things? i havent seen one in years! right now at work we're phasing out the G74 series and those are early 17 inch models. right now, our instructions are to immediately replace any 15 inch monitors we come across and add them to our "junk" box
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
The engineers were obviously smoking something themselves and couldn't tell the monitors had problems
(on a side note, big kudos to IBM for actually being willing to fix the problem instead of just hiding it or merely announcing the problem without being willing to fix it)
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
. . . from components they popped off of returned deskstars.
No I'm not trolling.
Do those smoking monitors have to be used outside in California?
Trolling is a art,
...for the IBM 970 PPC chip to come out. Pentium toasting performance!
My IBM monitors has burned last year, the fire has spread in my house, burning everything, including my wife and my 4-year son who were sleeping!
I'll never buy something from IBM until they refund ME!
Did you mean mojo? Yeah, Baby!
Maybe IBM should rethink its business focus. Perhaps they should manufacture baseboard heaters, toaster overs, wave solder baths...
Trolling is a art,
IBM = Internally Burned Monitors. :)
recall the deathstar drives, we'd be making progress.
Seriously, I had 2 drives (same manu. date/place) go within a day of each other. Coincidence? I think not. (Link goes to Class action lawsuit page)
In other news: Anti-tobacco treaty agreed [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2810195.s tm]
So, IBM is catching up with the latest trends, huh?
IBM has received several reports of monitors overheating and smoking
sounds like these monitors just bought themselves a first-class ticket to detention. They should have smoked in the bathroom where nobody would see them.
I blame the parents.
Build your own website - full service homepage system your m
It's good that a company actually has the balls to recall a faulty product. It's kind of a shame that it has to be a fire hazard to make it happen, and not poor quality. I guess it's the lawyers who made the call, fearing wrongful death suits when some kid dies of inhalation while playing UT.
The PC market is flooded with second rate, faulty, poorly designed and nonfunctional hardware.
I once had an NEC monitor that burned out on me, had it replaced, that one burned out, replaced again, that one burned out ad nauseum - 5 in a row. By the 6th, they had stopped manufacturing them and I got a different one, which still works fine today.
I knew the monitor was designed poorly, they knew it was designed poorly (they only made 'em for like 6 months). Wouldnt a recall have been easier and cheaper than cross shipping me 5 replacements in a row?
Oh well. I just wish there were more corporations willing to stand behind their merchandise.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
If IBM's faulty product caused you to lose house, home, and family, get yourself a god damn lawyer and shut up about it.
All this time I thought it was my bikini models screensaver that was smokin'.
Best Windows Freeware
I'd say they were more of a water risk....
If you have a smoke detection system that will set off sprinklers in the event of smoke....
then all your machines are Toast!
Maybe. Motorola did coldfire, IBM PPC does HOT! Fire!
...now double the expenses with a chain smoking monitor, darn!
AOL Member: My monitor seems to be smoking. ...uh ...tells you, by olfactory cues, how fast your internet connection is. [co-workers dying of laughter in background, turning blue] We just upgraded our network, so that's probably what you're seei ...er, smelling, sir.
Customer Support: Oh. Err... [looking at breakroom longingly] Is that an IBM monitor you have there, sir?
AOL Member: Why yes, it is.
Customer Support: Well, then that would be the new Smell-sation monitor feature, sir. It
AOL Member: Oh, wonderful! Thank you! [click]
My
Limekiller
I forgot - CmdrTaco is an idiot!
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
There was something simliar with smoking hardware that happened where I work--
We had a developer who was coding on a Dell Latitude w/ Dell's huge (and expandable) C/Dock-II. For those who don't know what that is, it's basically an expandable dock with which you can add PCI cards, SCSI, etc..
Anyway, the dock started smoking one day during his coding session. I just happened to be walking by and quickly unplugged it from the wall. Apparently a small capacitor inside the dock exploded and got all over everything, causing it to smoke.
We told the developer that because his code was so ineffecient, his compile had melted the dock.
He believed us! har har...
-brain
My guess is that most of the people that use these are business customers (ie. used as cash register displays or something like that) and they don't want to lose any repeat business.
Most smokers I know like to have a cup of coffee and a smoke in the morning, and a smoke after meals. Slap a java runtime environment in there and you could market a rockin computer designed especially for a smoker's kitchen!
Then I put on a suit, because you can get away with anything if you're wearing a suit. Suits lie.
I know their stance for linux has improved, but still seems somewhat wisshy washy at times....IBM IMO is a really strong business, but they seem to be half-assing a lot lately
Ave Molech Setting
The 6541 model of IBM monitors are quite old since they were manufactured from June 1997 - September 1997. It's amazing that they still work. Our company used to purchase Acer 34 and 76 monitors and they all failed within 3 years.
And only 5 reported failures? In almost 6 years? That doesn't sound too bad to me...
Chris
Here come the Deskstar trolls.
It's a good thing that my parents only have the regular IBM 17" monitor, the one that has an annoyingly loud 16-19 kHz whine when left on for too long. They may go deaf, but at least their house won't burn down in the process...
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
S'funny, I just got out of my shower to notice there was no more power in my place. Then I got into the the kitchen and saw there was power. So I checked the breaker box and the living room was tripped, so I check it out... My humidifier just blew up! Then when I get back on-line, I see this story!
Good thing IBM doesn't make humidifiers! I'd be dead!
These things are ancient. I've gone through at least two monitors since the G51 was introduced. And a decent new 17" monitor is about $120. Seems like it would be cheaper for IBM to just give owners a credit towards a new monitor.
Perhaps IBM is banking on the fact that most of these dinosaurs are sitting on a shelf somewhere because their tubes blew out long ago. I know I wouldn't bother getting a 6-year-old 15" monitor fixed, even if it was for free.
This happened once with computer terminals at C-MU. They had about 50 that had accidentally been built with a star washer on the power supply connection to the motherboard. All of the current going through the small contact area of the points of the washer caused the PCB to heat up, char and finally catch fire. Some unlucky soul got the job of dismantling them all and replacing the star washer with a flat washer.
PS. Don't worry, I don't even pretend as if my reply were intelligent
Just make sure you don't leave your weed next to the monitor. It may mysteriously disappear. If the monitor starts acting funny, you may not want to believe the excuse that its just degaussing itself. If you notice that there is a lot of red in the picture, or a glazed over look in your screen, your monitor could very well be a pot smoker.
In that case, hey, let the monitor smoke, you may notice improvements when playing games.
#!/
... and you get the perfect display device for those powerpoints from marketing.
if only they recalled their crap hard drives as well. I'm on the second repacement of the same 60 gig drive already and I only bought the original one last March. At this rate I'll have another 4 repacements before the warranty is out, unless the quality improves.
YES! AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE OWNZ YOU!
Meatwad: Hey frylock, look at yer carpet. Iz burnin'.
Frylock: Meatwad, you know better than to play with fire. Fire is dangerous.
Meatwad: I know, I know, I use it in my work.
Carl: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY LAWN!?
we rolled the windows down alot....
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
They are withdrawing all the 117,000:
[rant] ;-)[/rant]
It's only the US-centric slashdot, who want us Europeans to burn...
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
i read slashdot about monitors explodeing and what do i use an IBM monitor, it is only a G74 so that makes me feel a bit better, but my TP 600 is ready for another new screen (dead pixles) and i have to call IBM about the one year warranty on my TP600 battery. manufactured march 2002 and what month/year does it die? march 2003. on the plus side my old model "M" keyboard from ibm still works fine
I have a 14" Viewsonic monitor that has a Windows 3.1 UPGRADE sticker on it that I placed there about 12 years ago. It's been reduced to being the orphan monitor hanging off a KVM switch.
It's been in operation almost every day of those 12 years. It starts right away, syncs to different VGA/SVGA resolutions without fail, has its colors intact, the whole thing - functions like new.
The fact that anyone considers a monitor from '97 to be ancient, useless and presumed dead really indicates that they really don't build 'em like they used to.
The IBM monitors that shipped with IBM PS/2 computers in the late 1980's were notorious for bursting into flame. Flames would shoot out of the monitor's vents at the top of the case. One morning I found one had charred the top of its case overnight. Luckily it burned itself out without tripping the office sprinklers. THAT would have been more exciting.
Which reminds me of the sick joke I dreamed up for our IT boss at that job. We were thinking of calling him up on his honeymoon vacation, and saying, "Don't worry about the fire in the data center. The sprinklers put it out!"
Around that time I was interviewing at a 100% "True Blue" IBM shop. I mentioned that the new IBM monitors are known to burst into flame. The response was, "Oh yes, the monitors do often catch on fire. But then IBM replaces them for free under warranty!"
IBM's immediate response was to send adhesive labels for the monitors that advised powering them off when not in use. New monitors came with the sticker pre-applied at the factory.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
I thought that new Photoshop filter was a little too realistic...
Smoking is unhealthy for Any[body|thing]
But it just tastes so Darn Good!
couldn't they just have published the 'nosmoke' download on their website and let people fix it themselves ?
cloak of invisibility not working, there are squirrels everywhere
Those damn overclockers! When will they learn?!?!
An old but good story...
Once upon a time, I used to work for a large electronics retail chain that had just (finally) implemented a point-of-sale computer system about 10 years after introducing one of the first personal computers.
The point-of-sale system, affectionately known as the POS (and boy, was it ever!) used bare-bones diskless PCs as dumb terminals. The onboard video was good old fashioned TTL monochrome and the monitors we used were 13" monochrome monitors OEM'd by a large Korean congolomerate.
We started receiving reports of burnt out monitors from other stores and one day, as I walked by the sales counter, I noticed an acrid smell. I looked at the nearest POS terminal and sure enough, the monitor was smoking. We unplugged it and replaced it, but I never did hear of a recall of the monitors, and the retailer continued to sell the same monitors to customers.
I am still stuck on an old IBM 6314 (yea, I know, ick!) due to cost, even having had a problem with it a few years back. A fuse went in it, and I took it to get repaired, where they said "Well, we'll see but it's unlikely to be repairable due to it's age."
They ended up sending it back to IBM who managed to find a replacement fuse for it at the back of a warehouse or something and got it fixed for me, all for, I seem to recall, about £30.
So I'm still using it to this day, til I get round to getting a 19" Trinitron. And Apart from the odd color flicker, which is fixed by smacking it around a bit, it still works as good as ever!
RTFA! :-D
Sorry I could not help myself.
It isn't just IBM the whole industry is starting to put out crap. Everyone wants cheap PCs and you take a hit on the quality when you go for that.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
then they'd get a tax-break (as long as they wasted petro-chemical resources at the same time).
All thanx to 'W'
foe me, freak me.
We just built a new data center. I wanted gas, but it was just too expensive, so we got the next best thing, a pre-action system.
We have sprinkler heads like everyone else, but the pipes feeding them are filled with compressed air. A special valve/air pump setup keeps the pipes pressurized and the water out until the alarm is set off by smoke. The pipes then fill with water but it takes a hundred mublemumble degrees to melt the sprinkler heads and dump water on everything.
The advantage is that you can have smoke OR heat (or a busted sprinkler head) and not douse the room with water. You need smoke AND heat to spray water -- any room that gets 150 degrees and is full of smoke has some pretty serious problems that sparing the water alone won't fix.
Focus, guys, focus! Thinkpad Batteries!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Cathode monitors piss me off , as much as hard drives!
GTRacer
- Best...bratpack movie...ever
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
I saw one of these smoke itself spontaneously through code.
When I was in college, we had a couple of labs full of PS/2 Model 50s (286-based). One night, a friend of mine was testing calling assemply language routines from Turbo Pascal. She must have gotten some parameter passing or something very wrong, because as soon as she ran the app, it crashed and smoke started pouring out of the top of the monitor. At the time, we all thought that was the most impressive damn thng we had ever seen - a program that crashes so badly that it kills the machine. That takes more than a 3-finger salute to fix. Today, I'm a little more doubtful of the exact cause. It could have been a flaky monitor, but it would be a BIG coincidence for it to have had nothing to do with the program. (I wanted to try running the program again on a different machine and see if it happened again, but that seemed like a bad idea.)
On the subject of crappy IBM hardware, the PS/2s were far way from five 9s. I wasn't impressed by their service, either. Out of 35 or so systems, there were always about 3 or 4 dead ones. The service rep would come by about once a week, open them up and fiddle around inside, and then leave with at least one still dead. Admittedly, they were in regular use by student goons, but these were supposed to be high-end professonal quality tools. We had less trouble with the Leading Edge 8086es in our old lab.
Oh, and don't even get me started on the Microchannel architecture and the proprietary IBM configuration floppy you had to use to add new hardware and tweak the BIOS. Feh.
What if life is just a side effect of some other process and God has no idea we exist?
I didn't have the monitor catch fire, but (wavy lines) way back when I was learning C, and making lots of stupid errors, I had finally fixed what I hoped was the last one in a particular program. (hello-something-or-other, IIRC).
So I called out, "Here we GO!" and hammered on the return key.
All the lights went out. All the computers went out. All the other students in the lab turned around and said, "what did you do THIS time?!"
Turned out we were normally running 14.9A on a 15A fuse, and a full lab of students had put it over the line. We plugged some of the boxes into a different circuit after that.
But no-one believed that was the real cause. They all blamed me.
Between 1997 and 1999, a total of approximately 700,000 G51 series monitors were manufactured for IBM in Malaysia and China by LiteOn Technology International, Inc. Approximately 117,000 monitors that could potentially include this component were shipped worldwide, and about 56,000 were sold in the U.S.
No wonder Liteon sells CDRW drives now...
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Your girlfriend smokes my COCK!
For these smoking monitors, is IBM giving them the patch or the gum?
And I thought all that smoke was just my mobo overheating.
Well that makes you look pretty stupid, doesn't it?
Desperation is a stinky cologne
when you're so *HOT* as I, everything seems to heat up.
Had the 15" model about 2 years ago go up in smoke after pushing the power button. Black flakes could be found all over the room. Smelt pretty decent though!
I put it on the patch, it said it would try. I think it'd be a breach of trust to send it back.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
How about they repair their piece of shit fucking hard drives before they send them back to me.
Yeah, I know this post sucks major ass.
From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed
with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
-- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"
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