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Sony Recalls 18,000 VAIO Laptops
STFS writes "Reuters has a story about Sony having to recall 18 thousand VAIO laptops because apparently there is some risk of users receiving a small electric shock "if you have connected your PC (laptop) to external power, you have disabled your phone line, (while) simultaneously being connected to a grounded peripheral, and you are touching a metal part of the PC, and your phone rings"!" I can't begin to count the number of times that happens ;)
OMG! Thank goodness you stopped me in the nick of time!! I was _just_ about to do that!!
Unique signatures are rare.
I must have happened at least once, or they never would have done the recall. Basic formula, if the cost of a recall is less than the legal bills, they do a recall. Guess someone got zapped pretty good to scare them into a recall.
Space for rent, inquire within
This is why I don't buy Sony products. My Dell laptop has never electrocuted me.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Let me comment... There's the phone.... ARRRRRGHGHGHG!
(no carrier)
This space for rent.
when the line is disabled?
In the US:
Sony Returns and Replacements
100 Sony Drive
Sony Hills, CA 99888
Attn: Rube Goldberg
If only they could get all computers to do this when the user does something "stupid".
Sony has had to recall 18,000 of its CD's. It seems that listeners are shocked to find out that they paid $20 for an albumn with one good song, 50 minutes of filler, and a media which cannot play in a computer's CDrom drive.
So I was using my iBook the other day... and I pluged in my linksys wap11 through usb. Something was up, cuz I got a decent shock while pluging the cable in. Perhaps Berklin should recall their usb cables :)
--- its to bad about the monkey, I kinda liked them
A while back, over in Great Britain, a woman complained to the telephone company about her phone. It would sometimes not ring when someone called. The strange part, she said, was that when it *did* ring, the ring was invariably preceded by her dog barking. So she was convinced she had a broken telephone and a psychic dog. Now, in Britain, the ring signal is a high-voltage low-ampere current sent from the local office to the phone. The wire which carries this signal is run from the pole to a large metal spike in the yard, which grounds the circuit. In order to isolate the problem, the phone company sent a repairman out to climb the pole and manually send the signal down the wire. Sure enough, when he did this, nothing happened the first time. The second time, the dog barked just before the phone rang. Investigation revealed that the dog was chained (with an iron chain) to the spike that grounded the circuit. So this is what was happening: the ground was dry, preventing the ring signal from grounding itself easily through the spike, so the current ran down the chain to the dog, paralyzing him. When the current released the dog, he yelped and urinated, which wet the ground, so that the second ring signal made it through and the phone rang. (yes i copied this off the web somewhere.)
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Nobody's died from the electric shock when the phone rings.
But it sure isn't pleasant.
I got hit with it last time I was mucking around with the wiring in my house. I called myself with the cell to see if it worked.
You know you're stupid when you zap yourself like that...
err...
I meant sony, not sont....
should'a known better than to try to type fast when the boss is looking away.
BIGstan!
Business woman: Are there alot of these kind of accidents ?
Jack: You wouldn't believe.
Business Woman: What laptop company do you work for ?
Jack: A major one.
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
Many of the sales people @ my company uses them. This would provide me with hours of entertainment provided no one dies. Or smells like burning flesh in the office.
imagine a beowulf cluster of those!!!
And yet, they've received "fewer than 10 complaints", not zero, so someone must be doing it, especially since only a minority of affected users probably complain. I wonder what "disabled your phone line" means.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
...as to how the heck they found this out? I mean it doesn't seem like something that happens all the time.
This is why you should make your laptops out of plastic like Dell. They're just trying to keep consumers safe!
Where there really enough instances of this happening to have to order a recall? And in all these happening this is what caused it? It jsut seems so randumb to me.
SuDZ
You can get the same effect without a computer. Just hold the end of a phone line with one hand and anything metal and gounded with the other and have somebdy call you. If anything this is a defect with the phone system, not the freaking computer!
This is because the phone company sends a 60-volt (if I remember correctly) pulse down the line to cause a ring...a leftover from the days when it they had to send enough energy to drive the electomechanical bell.
That's Murphy's Law in its original sense: If there is more than one way that something can be installed or connected, and one of those ways leads to catastrophe, someone will eventually do it the bad way. In other words, given enough people and enough time, anything that can be done, however remotely possible, will eventually be done.
Let that be a lesson when designing hardware.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I'm surprised that this issue only afflicts 18k laptops.
In this era of mass production, how come the glitch only affects a few? Since the Reuters link is down, I can't read the article, but...
How can a hardware glitch be confined to such few laptops? It can't be cost effective to design something replicated only 18k times...
as a former vaio laptop owner.. I will never buy a Sony product again. Dead after 15 months and extortionist prices from Sony to replace the bad motherboard. Was cheaper not only to buy new, but better laptop as well. Its amazing how much a company can turn you off to their products - not so much because something broke - but by their failure to offer any reasonable resolution. After all, we're not talking $50 calculators. While this recall is a step in the right direction I really wonder if it just caused an *internal* short, instead of perhaps 'shocking' the user, would they even bother.
I wonder if Sony considered an exchange program with other users rather than replacing the laptops.
I am sure there are quite a few people out there who would like to have their lap stimulated while sitting around the house clicking on the Boobies links on FARK.
Mary EcEvoy, a spokeswoman for Sony in the United States, said a user could receive a shock such as that from static electricity
Does it really hurt that much to warrant such a recall? Static electricity is fun to play with, not a violent killer. Go run around a carpet with your socks on and then attack somebody, its great!
"I don't think their productivity is high enough..." This could happen for large sweat-shop firms, so let's hope CDW does not get ahold of these.
I would add to that the loss of goodwill arising from not issuing a recall or only issuing it after being pressured. Sony extracts top dollar by being percieved as being a more supportive company. Not saying it's true, but still.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I mean OW what are the chances OW of OW doing all those OW things at OW (damnit) OW at the same OW time?
OW I know OW when I use my OW Sony Viao OW this OW never OW happens! I'm OW using it right nOW.
This
This is just like that whiny guy that was apparently expecting his McDonald's coffee to be ice cold.
(say a printer or an external monitor)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Wouldn't Senator Hatch just love this:
There is a high risk of users receiving a small electric shock if you have connected your PC (laptop) to external power, you have disabled your phone line, (while) simultaneously being connected to a grounded peripheral, and you are touching a metal part of the PC, while sharing files and your phone rings"
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
If Sony makes it easier to get the shock going they will have something. At which point, I'm sure some geek will combine this with the shocking jacket and the shocking controller. Imagine the hours of fun.
--- I'm Green Hornet's sidekick not Inspector Clouseau's!
... being the poor person working the help desk who had to try and reproduce the problem?
The Vaio (and only the Vaio, mind you *sarcastic grin*) also has a problem when you've got it plugged into the wall and are using it while bathing. They're having to recall all their laptops because someone might get shocked if all these events occur in unison:
Computer is plugged in and turned on
Bathtub is full of water
You are in bathtub full of water
Laptop that is plugged in falls into water
Damn them for shipping out unsafe products.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
I just know there's some sort of Nethack joke here!
(Though with the three batteries I've gone through being completely non-functional, it's had less opportunity.)
The cake is a pie
In Soviet Russia, Sony Laptops shock ... um... nevermind.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
Speaking from experience, getting hit by the current from a ringing phone line can be extremely uncomfortable. Back in the dialup days I always had a second phoneline. I also moved a lot. So most places, I would have them bring the second line to the outside of the house/apartment and then wire it myself to save cash. The last time I did this, the apartment was already wired for two lines but the second one wasn't connected to any of the jacks. So, being a moron, for some reason I was holding the wires for the primary line in my mouth while I was stripping the wires on the second line when somebody decided to call me. Wham! It was like chewing on an electric fence. Very unpleasant experience.
Needless to say I don't put wires in my mouth anymore whether they're connected to anything or not. Looking back I'm not sure why I did it in the first place. I think maybe the wire was wanting to fall back into the wall and I was in a hurry.
this is huge plan by Bush/Ridge to get people to return their computers with disk intact so that they can look in side and then install a nice back door. Good move. :)
Seriously though, how many people will send the systems back but leave all their personnel data on it and then assume that nobody touched it.
I can't begin to count the number of times that happens
Perhaps that's because the Vaio has burned your fingers off.
Find funky gifts
Back when BBSes were popular when I was in high school, a friend ran one out of his house. One day his computer died, and he was replacing something in it, so he had it open. He was doing it as quickly as he could, so he just pulled out various cards and laid them wherever was handy. His leg happened to be the 'handy' place to set the internal modem (a 2400 baud, IIRC.) He set it component-side-up. With the phone cord still plugged in. Now, his BBS was reasonably popular (for a one-line BBS.) So, inevitably, someone called while he was working on it. Sent him a decent sized jolt through his leg. He had little burn marks where the phone line connectors were touching his leg for about a week.
Yes, I was there for this adventure. The three of us who were there (aside from him, of course,) were laughing histerically.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
The article reminded me of this video.
in britain a lady complained that many times, her phone rings but noone is there at the other end. also, whenever this happens, a neighbours dog barks! the coincidence happened too often to be accidental so the phone company investigated it.
they found that there were some loose wires and whenever dog used to pee on them, it used to create short circuit. this used to give shock to dog (guess where) and that is why it was barking. also, due to short circuit, the phone used to ring.
well the phone company fixed the fault and so should Sony do in this case.
Subject: Fw: she is bored with your small martin dwfyecs jydwnhlil
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 03 19:47:35 GMT
From: "Flossie Houston" <bjwilson62981527@columnist.com>
To: joeuser@anywhere.com
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"if you have connected your PC (laptop) to external power, you have disabled your phone line, (while) simultaneously being connected to a grounded peripheral, and you are touching a metal part of the PC, and your phone rings"
Wait a minute, somebody told me that was the cheat code to get unlimited gold in Warcraft 3...
Its the original electro-hilarious man! Some of the classic masters of slapstick simply use falldown jokes. While this elicits a few chuckles, none compares to your wildly dangerous and positively shocking stunts! How can you even type after being so succinctly and hilariously electrocuted??? I can't believe you were able to time the phone ringing whilst in the middle of a serious Slashdot post! I am hardly able to type this because I have been hit by sizzling bolt of laugh-lightning! Someone has charged you up the funny-bomb and placed it squarely in the clouds for all of us to be struck with. I'll bet the person on the other end of the phone got a jolt of pure hilarity as well. You have taken a serious discussion of the dangers associated with Vaio laptops and turned it into an electrified romp into the nether-regions of comedy! I would tip my hat to you good sir lest it was not fused to my head! Mods, mod this master of improv +5 High-Voltage-Hilarious!
Anyone know which specific models or serial #s are affected by this? It didn't appear to be in the article or any of the links I clicked through.
Searching around the net, I guess this is a common problem with that particular model, and even if you get the screen replaced it'd probably just have happed again. A few months later, the battery died and I discovered that a new one would run $250(!) even if I bargain-hunted.
This was four years ago or so, so I paid like $2300 (and this is $2300 in college-student dollars, which works out to approximately 383 pizzas) for the damned thing, and Sony wouldn't lift a finger to help me.
Anyhow, last year I bought a LCD screen and the thing's my kitchen term now. Still highly annoyed.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I sent a Sony Vaio back for repair - it just wouldn't respond at all when I turned it on - absolutely nothing. I concluded from this that it must have been something fairly basic - a loose power connnection or faulty battery.
Before sending it to Sony I took the CD-ROM and can pluged it into another machine so I could continue using it. When I phoned them they said that they would only accept the machine for servicing if it had the hard disc in it. When I explained that the problem had nothing to do with the hard disc, they said that didn't matter - they would charge me for another one if I sent it back with no hard disc in it.
So I sent it for servicing and guess what, they said the hard disc was faulty, and they had to replace it! And they charged £350 to replace it. It was the companies money, so I wasn't that bothered, but I am sure the problem with the machine was trivial - a loose wire or something - so they decided to say the hard disc was faulty so they could charge to replace it. Has anyone else experienced this?
Mods please note: The proper moderation for the above post is nothing at all. Pay special attention to the content (which is obviously not "Informative" to anyone but modders).
If you are to take any action at all, it would be to rate this as Overrated/Offtopic or rate the PARENT post as Funny.
IANAL, but I play one on
Someone's probably already said this but the phone line voltage when ringing is about 90 volts AC if I recall correctly.
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
Every time I come back to my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop, even after a short break, I get an electric shock of orgasmic proportions the first time I touch Ctrl key. I can actually see a quarter-inch lightning bolt piercing the air. I had to come up with a solution to avoid electrocution - I take a straightened out paper clip and touch Ctrl key with it first... then watch sparks fly.
How come there was no recall on my laptop? I am jealous!
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
The laptop affected by the recall is the FR series, or FRV in the United States, a popular model with a large screen and with a price starting around $1,500.
db
Cig:
ôô
"Small electrical shock" for sure.
Given Sonys track record, this probably is one of those laptops that enable you to see people in the nude. Don't ship them back.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I'm surprised that this issue only afflicts 18k laptops.
In this era of mass production, how come the glitch only affects a few? Since the Reuters link is down, I can't read the article, but...
How can a hardware glitch be confined to such few laptops? It can't be cost effective to design something replicated only 18k times
BBC News also has the story.
The fault is only present in the Sony VAIO FR and FRV models. Of the 18,000 most are in Japan, with only 3,000 in the US and 2,000 in Europe. The actual part in question is the modem.
I'm not sure if 18,000 represents the total number of the FR and FRV series shipped in total or if that's the number of units that shipped with this particular modem but I'm sure that via batch testing, etc Sony is recalling the right number of units.
Why? Because now that they are going to the trouble of a recall it makes very little sense to recall fewer units than might be possibly affected, if only because of the potential of litigation if a non-recalled unit were to harm a person.
If a non-recalled unit hurt someone, Sony would have a very weak position in court as it has already conceded that this problem exists, that it isn't isolated, that it knows about it and that it's potentially dangerous.
Anyhow, read the BBC article (which I referenced when I submitted the same story earlier today) for more info.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I work for a major medical device company. We make small, portable medical diagnostic devices that can be attached to a PC so data can be downloaded to the PC for graphing, reporting, etc.
There is an incredibly small chance that someone could be touching a drop of blood on their fingertip to an electrically conductive test strip in the meter while it's connected to their PC at the same instant that lightning strikes nearby - coursing through the electrical system in the house - and if the PC has a bad ground it's possible the user could receive a potentially deadly shock. It's also possible that monkeys could fly out of my butt, but I won't hold my breath waiting for either to happen.
In order to get FDA clearance, we have to include in the manual a warning and offer to sell a special 'electro-optical isolation cable' to anyone who is worried this might happen. Further, we had to actually design, develop and build such cables (although we actually outsourced it all). In the end, we ended up with 200 of these cables with a total cost of $200+ per cable (they include some special UL approved transformers that are (45+ each), and since we're a corporation, we're in the money-making business so we're not going to *give* these cables away below cost, but since we're relatively nice guys, we are willing to *sell* them at our cost.
In the 7+ years that these cables have been available for sale, we've received a total of maybe 3 calls from consumers who were concerned, and when they discovered the cost, realized they weren't *that* concerned, so we still have 200 $200+ cables sitting in inventory.
Even though that may seem like a waste, $40,000 in un-used cables is a heck of a lot less than the cost to just do the paperwork for a recall, so it's a pretty good deal. Maybe Sony should just offer a prohibitively expensive shock-proof phone cord to cover their asse(t)s?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Combination of Sager Laptop and Cheap Walmart Headphones (sony? or phillips 9.99) would cause my ear to be shocked. It was kinda painful. Since it was only the right earbud, I eventually learned not to use the right one. Then the left one would shock me.
(They were the headphons that are kinda gell like and fit snugly inside your ear)
I use different headphones now.
I didnt sue.
I Encrypt My IM's
there's metal in VAIOs??
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
There's also a 400V (!) insulation test signal that is sometimes applied in the early morning hours (peak water-accumulation time), but it's current-limited to a very low current and only lasts for a few milliseconds. That, incidentally, is what causes "bell tap", where, in the early morning hours, some cheapie phones emit a brief bell signal. Anything that attaches to a phone line must tolerate that 400V spike.
Score:-1, Get Back To Work
If you've disabled your phone line, why would an incoming call cause a shock? Shouldn't that be the point of disabling it? I'm confused.
--
RumorsDaily
Nice cherry finish! That is what I vote for! And call it Dell Wooderon
why do we care?
... I imagine that some people might have become famous with their name honored on the Darwin Awards website ( http://www.darwinawards.com/ )
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
You know you're stupid when you zap yourself like that...
Not really. People just don't realize that ring voltage is 100+ VAC. I electrocuted myself when I was changing the wiring on the phones and someone called the house while I was doing it.
The lesson here is to unplug the house at the network interface box(aka a demarcation, or demarc, box- a two-compartment box on the side of the house or in the basement, don't touch anything except the stuff marked "customer access" or similar.)
Please help metamoderate.
I own a Sony Vaio laptop, and it shocks me regularly if I lift it up off my lap to move it, say to the couchside table or whatever. Not a tremendous jolt, but I began to have a pavlovian-like fear of moving it.
Since Sony is pro DRM/anti-P2P downloading music on one side and yet makes pc's with cd burners maybe this is their way of keep the user honest?
A little shock therapy every once in a while is a nice way to teach the user not to FUCK WITH Sony!
P.S. If you ever want to scare a Sony executive then all you have to say is GODZILLA or GODZIWHA as spoken in their native tongue:P
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Amazon sues Sony for violating its patent on a device that shocks people when the telephone rings.
Well,
If I make toast in the bathtub with the water running I'll get shocked too, but I don't see anyone recalling my toaster. How much electricity could the signal from the phone line pump into someone anyhow?
That disappeared from stores because they found that if you were bouncing a ball, shopping, had 1 or more children near you, and were from the planet earth there could be a chance you could lose control of the ball and nock something over or worse yet hit someones kid in the face....
Ave Molech Setting
...where if you set the command prompt in Windows XP in fullscreen mode, turn your PC speakers up to full power, are using a USB mouse and a PS/2 keyboard, have Windows Media Player 9 in the background playing streaming content, and hit the windows key on the keyboard, ICBMs are launched from Redmond to a spot on the earth corresponding to where on a Mercator projection your mouse was on the screen before you full-screened the command prompt.
It's never actually happened, but they were doing a design review and realized there was a potential flaw in the system. Better install those service packs.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Sounds like a nice DoS to me :-)
Even as obscure as this seems, it could easily kill you if delivered in just the right way.
It takes just MILLIamps to stop your heart. If you had just gotten out of salt water (or were sweaty...) and grabbed the laptop in one hand and a grounded water pipe with the other and your phone rang, it could potentially kill you just like that.
I'd think people with pacemakers would be even more vulnerable, but I don't know enough about them to comment further.
Sounds like Sony grounded the phone line to the laptop chassis, which is then grounded (probably) to the negative DC end of the power supply which is in turn grounded to common and/or ground on the wall socket. If you disconnect the power and hold the laptop and are then grounded in some way via holding a faucet or something you'd be the return path for the ring voltage.
The fix might be to run it through some sort of heavy resistance to reduce the voltage to something negligible in this situation.
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
...how can we find a way to blame this on the Windows OS that's installed on the thing? C'mon /., I'm disappointed! This many posts, and not one person blaming Windows yet? What's this place coming to?
</sarcasm>
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Perhaps Sony was just experimenting with anti-gravity... I think they're going to need to get the telcos to use higher voltage, though.
While not specifically recalled, we had a Compaq rep fly to our different offices and fix a couple hundred new Evo laptops. They too had a grounding issue. I do not believe these were a shock hazard though, they would shutdown when you touched them from the static discharge.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
So you wizzed on the electric fence...?
Both are known to be defective on VAIOs. My battery lasted just over a year (and they are *expensive*) and the keyboard just a little longer. A quick web search shows I'm just one of many.
Also, I'm still waiting to get my warrantee refund on the keyboard, I replaced it at my expense more than a year ago.
Do yourself a favor and buy a Samsung.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
test
Kind of like the time I was working on putting the second line in my ex-gf's house, and the phone rang. *bzzt* - dammit!
How can the disabled phone line ring ?
I dunno the conditions but my Inspiron has been tethered to it's AC power for a while because of a dead battery, and if I slide my finger over the speaker slits I'll get a small shock. I'm guessing it's only after I scuffle around the carpet a bit though.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Someone explain that to me. No I didn't read the article (on purpose), because that statement makes no sense at all! I'll go read the article now to see what it's *really* supposed to mean. Someone needs to do some better writing here...
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
I love how half the posts start with "I'm not an EE, but..." and then are followed by an explanation that sounds good to the layman but is mostly bogus.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Finally! You know how many tech support guys have been begging for that functionality??
:(
Too bad it's being recalled.
Nathan
Zero. How would anyone have a serious injury from this?
... you have disabled your phone line, ... and your phone rings
Phone ringing on disabled phone line... hmmm. Yep that happens to me all the time.
20 minutes between your posts too, plenty of time for you to not be redundent.
"I think that when you become a Republican, you don't get to score any more." -- Butt-head
Suppose someone has yet to be shocked in this situation. It would still be good to know that a company is not putting out crap, and if it is, it fixing the problem. Thats more then I can say for a lot of there companys/products out there.
i cant seem to come up with a sig.
Funny they will do a recall on this, but when they had about 100k laptops with bad LCDs 3 years ago they told everyone with the problem that the vertical stripe in the middle of their screens was a "feature" of their new video chipset. I haven't bought a Sony product since, and probably never will again.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
This would have been much cheaper for Sony if they let the problem solve itself... dead (read fried) man cannot sue? Right?
how the hell have you got ur sig link to hide the domain, please post the exact code using tags here please. thx
There is no god
In North America, ringing is at 90 Volts at a frequency of 30 Hertz. Now depending on just how much of that gets through the laptop to the user, it can actually pack quite a wallop. Further, when the phone company is drying out lines, the voltages are much higher. Technically, such voltages should never arrive inside your house, but last time I checked, this work was done by folks with feet of clay.........
TI-99A:
The VIAO is designed for extreme computing, driven by a double-capacity battery and equipped with an integrated CD-RW/DVD combo drive. It's arsenal includes a Memory Stick Media slot, for easy control of countless digital devices. It's body chassis is ultra-lightweight, and hardened against minor household accidents.
John:
You'll find a way to destroy it.
TI-99A:
Unlikely, I'm an obsolete design. The VIAO is a far more effective killing machine.
So what happens if you send it in, do they send you a new one, or do they just fix it somehow and return it. What do they expect you to do for computing during the 6-8 wks it always take these kinds of transactions to work?
This apparently was a real tech support call.
When they finally sent somebody out to investigate, it turned out that it was a rural farmhouse to which water was supplied from a well.
When they flushed the toilet, the well pump started, which drew enough current on that segment to reboot the pc.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Most of those power converters don't seem to have a third prong, so how does the grounding work, if not through the user?
We all remember the Powerbook defect from the :)
days of yore.
Please mod this as redundant. I am out of mod pionts at the moment.
Thank you.
Bet this
There should be a large number of returned laptops. Will all of them be repaired? Or will there soon be a few thousand flawed (cheap) VAIOs on the 2nd hand market? (actually, they will probably be destroyed as a health hazard). I want one. How can I get one?
Hell yeah, I mean at least Apple had balls to try to CATCH YOU ON FIRE, with a fault on the battery of the powerbook. Its obvious Sony wants to copy Apple, but not entierly, so as to not get Apples Lawyers on them for copyright infringment or some other stupid thing like the ;-)
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Hrm. I haven't had any problem. *phone rings* AUGHAHGAHGHAGAHAGHAHAGAAAAGHH!!!
(Okay that should qualify as the stupidest joke on slashdot.)
Doesn't anyone find this story similar to the Gas Station one? You know if your phone rings while pumping gas it can cause a spark, and ignite the gas you're pumping. Which was proven to be fake. Anyone find it odd that if you do a search on google for Vaio Recall, you'll get this link.8 9
Which has nothing to do with electrocuting you. Notice that article date is 4/18/03.
C'mon guys I thought you were smarter than this.
http://www.earthv.com/articles.asp?ArticleID=12
I have a slightly similar problem with my IBM Thinkpad. When it's plugged in and I'm not wearing shoes and I touch the headphone port I get quite a painful shock. It's surprisingly easy to do, since most of the time my thinkpad stays connected on top of my TV, so if I happen to grab it the wrong way, I hate to give up watching TV for a while and just sit there whimpering.
Anything is possible, except skiing through revolving doors.
Damn that 90 volts feels goood!!!
It's one of those stupid things that happens, if you're not so lucky, once in a lifetime.
At one time I repaired televisions, VCRs and such, brrrr. Thankfully I no longer have to do this.
The shop had a good working relationship with a local commercial electronics dealer, we did all their warranty and after warranty repairs.
A couple of years earlier they'd gotten a contract to provide televisions of a certain size and specification to a local prison.
These TVs needed earphone jacks, so they gotten someone to install them "cheap".
Time passed and we started getting these for repair with such delightful comments as "I got shocked and then smoke came out, now it's not working."
The TV, a small B&W set, was directly connected to the AC line with no isolation internally, this of course means that the jack is now at 120VAC potential and the small screw on keeper nut sticking outside the set is just ripe for someone poor, downtrodden rapist to get shocked.
I personally was torn between keeping my mouth shut and announcing the problem and the solution. Money won, we got about 120 per set, for a 50 dollar new TV, mainly to fix them quickly and keep quiet about it. I chose the money because there was little chance of a fatal electrocution, dammit.
This happens every now and then in the bidness, someone will invariably try to do this.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
My ibook tickles me all the time when plugged in. The shock comes from the battery area. I have called apple about it, and they deny it is happening.
Oh well.
Powerbooks rule. Better design, more advanced and better looking systems with a "no hassle" operating system that puts Linux and Windows TO SHAME.
considering that he has 50 fake IDs in his run-down house, Tyler is just _one_ of the names he uses...i'd bet that he had a fake passport.
it 'might be' Jack (all those stories written in _first-person_ in the basement...)
---- oh no - it's the RIAA and their $100000000 fine. I'm gonna take that so seriously...
you have connected your PC (laptop) to external power, you have disabled your phone line, (while) simultaneously being connected to a grounded peripheral, and you are touching a metal part of the PC, and your phone rings."
so, here i am, sitting at my desk with my sony vaio plugged in because the batteries dont last long enough, i have disabled my phone line because i dont want my laptop to answer calls, the phone line is connected though since i use a dialup isp, the lineout jack is connected to my (grounded) amplifier because i am listening to my mp3 collection, and i get a call on the one phone line i have and ZAP i get shocked? does not sound too unlikely to me.
of course, if no one ever calls you, you are not at risk.
for a quick fix, break contact with everyone you know.
I was hoping my model would be recalled. I bought it about 2 years ago, and I've never had more than 20 minutes of battery life on the battery that came with it, when it was advertised as 1.5-2 hours on one charge. Linux burns the battery even more, and sometimes just turns off before the battery is even empty. Maybe i've got something malconfigured in linux, but still... 20 minutes on the O/S it came installed with, winME.
winME can blowME.
I would have bought a different brand of laptop if i hadn't been in a travel rush when i got it. Everyone i see on the airplanes these days seem to run for atleast an hour or more on Toshiba's or Dell's.
I suppose that's why electricians and people who work with electrical lines, usually work with one hand behind themselves. Then, if you use a VAIO, keep one hand behind yourself while using it. Therefore all of this must be a strategy to introduce the japanese one thumb keyboard into the world market! :o
__
Sig: Marine Stock Photos
"Man dies after receiving shock for illegaly downloading music, as the government institutes it's new form of epunishment" They can't destroy our computers for downloading music so they shock us to death.
--Internet Grief Counselor--
The blood stream could be used as an antenna?
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
I really wish John Cleese could have described the setup of that situation....
"DO pay attention, because it's really quite simple..."
Those weren't fake IDs, those were IDs taken from people with dead end jobs that he "enlightened". Remember when Tyler drags the guy out behind the convenience store?
How informative is someone who gets painful shocks the same way twice?
has nothing to do with the vaio thing, but i find myself getting a mild shock from my toshiba portege 4010 when it's connected to the mains and i touch the corners of the casing where the paint has come off... can i make any money out of this fact? :-)
When I was a BS student, I used to use an AMS TravelPro laptop (Pentium 120MHz). Anyway while I was working in my dorm room at my desk in bare feet, I noticed that my wrists were getting shocked whenever they touched the edges laptop case (while typing). It wasn't like a static shock; more like a mosquito biting. It only happened when in bare feet, of course. (We had those nice tile/concrete floors. It was at GaTech in Armstrong, if any of you wasnt to try it.) I e-mailed AMS, more out of amusement than concern, but they never responded...
The case was plastic, by the way. But it was matalized in some way-- it was somewhat conductive.
All I can say is that Sony should make this a feature. There is a BIG potential once the dildonics market comes around. :-)
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
Given enough people and enough time?
That doesn't seem to be working for Duke Nukem Forever...
guess what my evil mother in law with a weak heart is getting for Christmas.
nice story, but my phone company has no problem letting me install my own phone
all in all, I say you are wrong
ibook: harmless
vaio: shocks you
think different
If I was Sony, all I'd do is send out an addendum to the manual that says "Do NOT do this - You'll get zapped"
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Maybe that's 'cause you Dell battery doesn't last long enough for you to feel the zap. ('cause it sucks) ;)
lol.. this news is about a week old (at least for me it is).. I work in the computer department at a local retailer and heard this news like the end of last month... I'm not sure if it's already posted but a quick search on this page didn't yield any results... but in any case, if anyone bought a Sony PCG-FRV25 notebook when it first came out about a week or two ago... that's the one they're talking about...
Apparently "disabled phone line" has a different meaning on the west side of the Atlantic. I thought it meant that no phone calls are allowed through.
--Bud
18K factory reconditioned VAIOs will shortly come onto the market :-)
I wonder on which continent this problem happened. I'm working in a Vaio factory outside the US (I'm not from Sony), does that mean that I should fear for my life every time the telephone rings? And for the colleagues who ARE working with VAIOs? (I am not) :-)
Christophe (Don't hesitate to point out my spelling and grammar mistakes, I want to learn - Thanks).
When they've got all these laptops, I wonder how much they'll take a look at what's on each one? Will the RIAA pay them to look for MP3, how many paedos will they uncover... ?!
oh my god! that just happened to me last night!
oh no wait, i was touching something else...
Oh... there's the phone. xcuse me!
Tyler is just _one_ of the names he uses
Nope. Aside from the "dying guys anonymous", he only uses Tyler Durden. Maybe if his boss, his g/f (name slipping me), and the whole dang Project Mayhem didn't know him as "Tyler Durden," you'd have a case.
it 'might be' Jack (all those stories written in _first-person_ in the basement...)
Those are, actually, real stories written in exactly the kind of magazine you'd find in an old abandoned house.
"I've never gotten a good explanation for the crossed-wires syndrome, though."
IANATE (telco engineer), but I believe I can explain "crossed wires" (and I'll go down in flames if I'm wrong, but here goes).
Some phone systems use (or used to) time division multiplexing (mux) to increase the analog cable capacity, effectively chopping up several channels into slices which are combined into one. The process is reversed at the other end (demuxing). For example, take 10 signals (A-J), give them 1/10th of a second each, and switch 10 times a second (A,B,C,D, etc).
If the mux and demux clocks are out of sync, the slices of the original signals get confused. Lets say the demux clock is 1/20th of a second behind the mux clock; the reconstituted signal A will be the second half of the slice of the original signal A, plus the first half of the slice of signal B. The reconstituted signal B wil be 50% signal B and 50% signal C, and so on.
Who can hear who when this happens depends on which part of the system is out of sync. You need a mux and demux at each end, remember. If the demuxer at your end is out of sync, but the mux is in, then you can listen to a crossed line, but not talk. If both the mux and demux at your end are out of sync, you can listen and talk. And, of course, if the mux is out but the demux is in, you can be heard but not listen in.
I'm not sure whether time division multiplexing is still in use, what with all the digital systems. Its been a long time since I was in a phone exchange...
Anyway, I hope that helps. You might want to google for more info on time division multiplexing; you are almost certain to find a more lucid explaination than mine.
"a mix of a incorrectly spec'ed out transistor or something like that, and a bad ground circuit"
Well, at least you didn't blame the power switch, that's a start.
"The metal case is obviously a ground,"
It may not be. Most laptops use external power supplies with no direct ground connection, so they would be classed as double insulated. Without any other path to ground, the metal parts of the case are most likely floating (no specific voltage with regards to ground).
"...and the phone being disabled probably grounds the phone out."
No, it wouldn't because the phantom power supply on the phone line (50 Volts, from memory) would then be shorted to earth. As much as I like pretty sparks, that's not a good idea. Devices for a phone line always disconnect open circuit.
"...the phone ringer signal grounds out through the person holding the metal ground portion of the case"
Except that the problem only occurs when the laptop is connected to a grounded peripheral. If there is a solid ground connection via, say, a monitor cable shield, the ring signal should shunt through that. In this case, the potential is being developed between (mains) ground and the floating ground of the laptop (when the mains ground is removed, the problem disappears, since the part that was previously connected to ground can float while the metal parts remain close to ground).
This all suggests a poor grounding design more than faulty parts. In fact, given that the ring voltage on a phone line is around 90 Volts, possibly higher for an unloaded circuit, it would be a mighty transistor (in laptop land, anyway) that could stand that kind of punishment without letting out the magic smoke that makes all components work...
No mom I do not want a Vio laptop. No grounding it to my deskmis not a good idea. Yes mom I'll remember to answer the phone the next time you call. No mom I don't think electricuting me is a good idea.
Yes mom I'll answer the phone.
I don't actually exist.
Actually, the chain is an excellent conductor, and the dog is pretty much a big bag of salty water, which is a very good conductor. The ground, particularly if it is earth is a reasonable conductor. So, on the whole, it's quite likely to be the path of least resistance.
the dog could only get shocked if the path was open.
If it is a rusted spike, it's quite likely to be open circuit.
While urine would perhaps make this path more conducive (I can't honestly say I've stood in pee and shocked myself),
Very much so. Urine contains quite a bit of salt- salt water is an excellent conductor.
it's higly unlikely any urination would be forced in the first place.
The poor dog is being shocked through it's neck and through it's paws. It's very likely to get most upset, and worried, and urinate.
Additionally as soon as it urinates, the shock stops. The dog will work this out over time, and deliberately urinate in the right place to stop the electricity. It's very plausible.
Whether it really happened though; I don't know. It could very well have done, but that doesn't mean it did.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"