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.

Comments

Quite old

[rirugrat]

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

More than 56,000

[EinarH]

From the IBM-site. :

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.

They are withdrawing all the 117,000:

If you live outside of the US, click here. for a list of phone numbers to contact a repair center.

[rant]
It's only the US-centric slashdot, who want us Europeans to burn... ;-)[/rant]

Re:Somewhat OT...but...

[Tim Macinta]

We had a developer who was coding on a Dell Latitude w/ Dell's huge (and expandable) C/Dock-II... 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.

Heh heh... and that's not the only thing from dell caught smoking.

Re:MMmm!

[tomhudson]

If you notice, the monitors were made under subcontract by the same company that made/used the exploding capacitors that have caused so much motherboard/poer supply grief lately.

Probably not a coincidence :-(

Re:Fiery IBM monitors are nothing new

[netringer]

Anyone who suggests using sprinklers in the datacenter should be immediately fired. Datacenter fire extinguishing systems should only be gas-based. That's in fact the way it is in any well-equipped datacenter.

Yeah, right. You don't have to deal with Chigaguh.

This particular (small) data center had a Halon system. It also still had sprinkler heads.

Sprinklers can be required because the building owners or city code will not allow them to removed. If the rules or building code say "All rooms on all floors must be equipped with a sprinkler system" it will be interpreted to mean exactly that, no substitutes allowed.

BTW, electrical conduits MUST be metal, we don't get to use the plastic sheathed stuff like the rest of world. Ditto for plumbing pipes, although PVC plastic waste pipes are legal in the city now, after 40 years of being banned. The unions/building departments (often headed by the same person) claim that the plastic would contribute toxic fumes in the event of a fire.

BTW II, Halon is effectively banned now, too. Because the EPA banned freon because of risk to the ozone layer, the gas is not made and thus is so expensive that a installing Halon or replacing it after a discharge would cost $100,000.