Dell Recalls Millions of AC Adaptors

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."

Comments

Risky?

[mfh]

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.

Re:Risky?

[cluckshot]

Made in China... Were those cheap China parts really cheaper than the American made ones? "Made in China" is a synonym for little or no quality control. But they were cheaper weren't they?

Re:Risky?

[Doc Ruby]

The parent is no Troll: it's the economic truth of cheap labor. So cheap that they can apparently afford to employ hordes of Chinese astroturfers mod'ing Slashdot - (little red) textbook example of power to the people through aggressive suppression.

Re:Risky?

[Anonymous Coward]

LIES slashdot can't be accessed in the People's Republic of China.

Unless you're talking about the Republic of China, aka Taiwan?

Re:Risky?

[kfg]

It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Power to the people."

KFG

Re:Risky?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess those CE, CSA, UL safety marks are stamped on products just for fun.

This is a new precedent for unabombers, you just have to tell cops that your mail bomb is actually a defect toaster, and you are planning to recall it eventually.

Re:Risky?

[MindStalker]

I think his point was that its obviously not so cheap now that they have to do a recall.

Re:Risky?

[shintaro]

That would be true, if they were made in China. Check your facts gain next time, they were made in Vietnam.

Re:Risky?

[Anonymous Coward]

Made in China... Were those cheap China parts really cheaper than the American made ones? "Made in China" is a synonym for little or no quality control. But they were cheaper weren't they?

Hmm. Like American cars are so reliable...

Re:Risky?

[Doc Ruby]

My point, too. That's how they got me to agree with his Troll regarding '"Made in China" is a synonym for little or no quality control". That doesn't change the fact that their point was based on the "China" troll: the parts are made in Taiwan, which typically has good quality control, and is not China. Unless this is some kind of racist diatribe that I will not dignify.

Re:Risky?

[hesiod]

Mine says "Made in China" printed on it which would be a good reason to think they were made in China.
9364U

Re:Risky?

[hesiod]

> That would be true, if they were made in China. Check your facts gain next time, they were made in Vietnam

The 9364U I have in front of me says "Made in China." Could be mislabelled, of course.

Re:Risky?

[jdc180]

The 09364U I have says made in Thailand. I guess they make these all over the place.

Re:Risky?

[Tanktalus]

You'd think. But since when have mere facts swayed the opinion of /.ers?

Re:Risky?

[Tackhead]

> > 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 of trying to pick it up by the cord.

Re:Risky?

[pnutjam]

It has to have one of those numbers AND be made by DELTA in Thailand.

Re:Risky?

[matth]

Surely you are joking about this comment?

Re:Risky?

[oudzeeman]

My recalled 9364U was made in Thailand.

Re:Risky?

[Idarubicin]

Slashdot UID #56 up for auction at Ebay

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

Re:Risky?

[hesiod]

Hehe, too true. Although it turns out that even though they are the same model, they were made in different places. Another person reported that his (same model #) said "made in Thailand."

Re:Risky?

[shawn(at)fsu]

No that warning is also on Christmas lights. Really puts you in the holiday spirit...

Re:Risky?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not joking. My memorex computer keyboard has the same tag on the ps2 cord.

Peter

Re:Risky?

[Anonymous Coward]

A design gets CE approval, not a specific collection of parts. There is no requirement to do 100% testing. And nothing about a CE rating prevents a company from manufacturing out of spec... they just lose the rating and get fined when the transgression is discovered. If these had gone just slightly out of CE spec, but not been prone to burnination, no one would ever have known or cared.

Re:Risky?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both my 9364U supplies were "Made in China" and were accepted by the recall site as being affected.

Re:Risky?

[hesiod]

Interesting. I would have thought that similar model #s would be made in the same factory, or at least the same country. I guess that's what serial #s are for...

Re:Risky?

[ethanms]

My non-recalled 9364U was made in Thailand...

I have 2 more at home which are probably bursting into flames as we speak...

Re:Risky?

[Doc Ruby]

They're reported, in the linked article, to be made by Delta electronics, a Taiwan company. Delta is responsible for the quality control we're discussing in this thread, regardless of where they're manufactured.

Re:Risky?

[Anonymous Coward]

ive farted more lead than is on that cord

Re:Risky?

[homer_ca]

I suppose you won't be buying an iPod 'cause they're made in China too. They build lots of high end name-brand gear along with the cheap crap with no QC, and it really is cheaper to build things there. You can't compete with efficient, hard-working factory workers making $.50 an hour. The economic reforms in China along with free trade agreements resulted in a booming manufacturing industry there. You have a lot more to worry about from them than cheap plastic junk.

Re:Risky?

[TomServo]

I'm wary of blaming on a specific country or people, but there is a point to this, and it all goes back to that old cliche of "you get what you pay for".

Now, this is not to say that you're just going to get a worse product out of someone. I know a number of programmers who have since moved back to India since their H1-Bs went out, and of the ones I had the pleasure to work with, the vast majority are better than most American programmers I know. However, you pay less in exchange for difficulty in communication, time differences, the lack of ability to directly oversee the process without a long flight, etc. While I do not consider myself a rabid capitalist, the reason that labor and the like is higher here in the US is because the returns/expenses involved are better. Eventually the pendulum will swing, too many events like this will happen, and jobs will start heading back to the US.

In the meantime, those who truly *want* to code or whatever for a living will continue to improve themselves and be plenty good enough to hire, and those that did it to get rich will find the next big thing to get rich on. And so it continues.

Re:Risky?

[BlastQuake]

Well they say size doesn't matter... Most women I've know prefer something slightly larger however

Re:Risky?

[emac]

It's probably a PVC jacketed cable. PVC is really nasty stuff, but (aside from it slowly killing you) it is also close to an ideal material for insulating cables.

Re:Risky?

[unitron]

And you think that (mainland) China is such a respecter of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and such that it would never turn out deliberately mis-labled products?

(If so, suggest you avoid buying a Rolex from that guy on the street)

Re:Risky?

[pnutjam]

It doesn't matter what I think, it matters what Dell thinks. They won't accept it as a recall unless it meets both criteria I listed above. If your still hungry I have another bag of troll-food around here somewhere.

daily troll

[Anonymous Coward]

that news shocked the balls right off of me!

Dude!

[Shadow Wrought]

You're getting a fire!

This probably explains.........

[ARRRLovin]

.....the 2 mainboard replacements I had done on my Inspiron 4150.

Re:This probably explains.........

[DigiShaman]

As someone who worked at Dell, this does not suprise me. I've seen alot of AC Adapters shipped with the wrong laptop. Just flipped the laptop over and compare the power requirements, it's rather shocking that your AC Adapter is over worked.

Also, they ones made by Delta Electronics are utter shit. But hey, that's what Dell get's from buying shit quality from the lowest contract bidder.

Re:This probably explains.........

[ARRRLovin]

The funny thing is, besides the mainboard incident, the laptop was flawless. It saw more use than any other portable in the building and that was the only problem in over 2 years of use.

Re:This probably explains.........

[ForestGrump]

insp 8100 conected to one of the affected units. still under warranty, still need to call dell to replace the mobo tho...

Re:This probably explains.........

[Anonymous Coward]

I get a "service unavailable" message when I try to access the website set up by Dell for the recall program. Maybe they are using one of their laptops and the slashdotting caused the adapter to catch fire.

Good luck!

[shpoffo]

To the unlucky buyers. I wonder if that's why my company laptop's fan is always coming on?

.
-shpoffo

Re:Good luck!

[El]

No, the Dell adapters are external "bricks", so the heat from them shouldn't be anywhere near your laptop. The fan always running is probably due to your Intel processor...

Re:Good luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Dell installed a fan to deal specifically with a dangerous AC adapter that might cause a fire.

Dumbass.

AC only?

[Jhon]

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.

Re:AC only?

[marcello_dl]

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 :)

Re:AC only?

[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. Gotta post this as AC since I work for Dell ;)

Re:AC only?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a bunch of the small form factor dells that use ITX boards; they have a heat problem too. Parts have been going left and right. They also use crappy caps that leak taking out the MB.

Re:AC only?

[jon787]

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.

Re:AC only?

[Eraser_]

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 sun cases.

Re:AC only?

[extra88]

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 received the replacement drives, out of the 43 machines 14 had already failed and 4 more failed while we were in the process of cloning them. I believe all of the replacement drives were from Western Digital and we haven't had any failures of the replacement drives. Not that I think WD is better than Maxtor per se, I've had horrible luck with some 250GB SATA drives from WD this year.

We did not have these kinds of drive problems with the SFF GX50s we purchased in '02. This year we purchased 72 more GX270s (2.4GHz Celerons, otherwise pretty much like last year's model) and so far have only had 1 drive failure.

I thought the problem might be heat/ventilation and that the GX50s didn't have the problem because they just weren't generating as much heat. But none of the replacement drives have failed which you would think would happen if the case was at fault. I suppose its possible that the WD drives have a higher heat tolerance than the Maxtor drives but why haven't we had a rash of failures yet this year since these machines should be even hotter than last year's? I think Dell buying a bad batch of drives from Maxtor is the most likely explanation.

Re:AC only?

[Jhon]

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?

[Jhon]

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?

[parcel]

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.

Re:AC only?

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of a shipment of 50 dell GX150's in 2001 we saw the first 11 shipped die within a year. Dell refused to acknowledge anything about the failures. The remaining have worked fine. Our solution was to never use dell as a vendor again.

1998-2002?

[RangerRick98]

Why has it taken 2-6 years to discover this problem, if millions of these units have been sold?

Re:1998-2002?

[Nos.]

My guess, it hasn't. It probably started becoming obvious in the first year. It probably took 2-6 years to ADMIT the problem. That being said, I don't mind Dell's laptops all that much. My last employer used them (and I supported them) and for the most part were fairly reliable and robust.

Re:1998-2002?

[Best ID Ever!]

And why, when I ordered one 3 days ago (to replace one that shorted out), did they send it to me? Damn you Dell -- I want my $50 back.

Re:1998-2002?

[Anonymous Coward]

Narrator : 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.

grrrrr

[FuzzzyLogik]

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

Re:grrrrr

[bigjnsa500]

Beware this link. This Dell page maximzes your window *for you*.

Re:grrrrr

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you'll find that all manufacturers have problems of some sort. Either related to a particular model or sometimes individual systems are just bad (depending on the workers that put it together or where it was assembled or where its parts were made).

Re:grrrrr

[reddawnman]

Any interest in selling me any of those batteries if they still hold a charge? I bought a 5000e for $50 and all i need to make it "portable" is a battery. Speaking of the battery recall, I tried to get them to recall my batt, because it does fall under the recall, but I don't get any answer... any luck on that with you? is there a # I can call thats NOT hindustani tech support (As all they do is give me the circular runaround)

Re:grrrrr

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just like any complex piece of equipment.

Take your car for example. Is there one manufacturer that makes a perfect car that never breaks? Right... See what I mean?

I mean, you can mitigate your risk by only buying from quality suppliers, but there is always some amount of risk. Dell has always been fairly good quality, relatively speaking of course (that's why they are such a huge company now.. the customers spoke with their money!).

Re:grrrrr

[Anonymous Coward]

> Ok that's it. I'm never buying another dell again.

Dell's strategy of doing enterprise deployments backfired for me. My company bought thousands of latitude and inspiron notebooks, and I've seen the high failure rates with my own eyes.

Now, maybe Toshiba and Sony have the same failure rates, but because I've *seen* a lot of Dells go bad, I will never buy one for myself. I didn't even let my company provide me with one, choosing to purchase a Toshiba myself.

Re:grrrrr

[bobbozzo]

Dell has moved their phone support back to US.

Email is still going to India, at least as of July.

Re:grrrrr

[FuzzzyLogik]

If I decide to sell it i'll keep it in mind. they're all like brand new to be honest with ya. but shoot me an email at unlogikal@gmail.com if you're still interested and if i decide to sell i'll let ya know. currently my brother uses it for school... i use my new powerbook (thank god i haven't had any problems with that yet)...

Re:grrrrr

[imsabbel]

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

[Rude Turnip]

Just go to the Tools, Options menu in Firefox. Then Web Features. Click on the "Advanced" button for Javascript. Turn off "allow websites to resize windows." There is no step 5!

Re:grrrrr

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow

This actually happened here about a month ago. It's a good thing I was around too, I unplugged it right away thinking I'd have to *buy* a new power adapter.. !

It started smelling like burning-plastic in my office... The power indicator led went off, and I noticed the laptop was now running off batteries.

I believe them when they say it can cause fire. Trust me, the thing was really hot - I accidently touched the adapter and burned one of my fingers :p

btw, the adapter was working again 30-40 mins later that day. I guess I unplugged it at the right time.

Re:grrrrr

[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 reform.

Re:grrrrr

[bigjnsa500]

Dude! I didn't even know that was there. Thanks for telling me!

Re:grrrrr

[Backdraft32]

Dell certainly didnt move their home support back to the US. Their business support may be here, and the people who own an XPS get to use their special support, but the regular home user still gets sent to India for everything from tech support to Dell Financial Services. And they give their support people very English sounding names. I have had the pleasure of talking to Cameron, Sara, and a few other blatantly American names, even though the people I spoke to had very thick Indian accents. I dont particularly mind, but it makes for some interesting conversations at times.

Re:grrrrr

[ethanms]

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...

Re:grrrrr

[SCSI-Wan]

I just had to trash my Inspiron 8200... I had it for right at 2 years. First my HD dies on me, so I replace it with a smaller (but free) drive from a friend. Then battery periodically stops charging. On boot, the computer reports that it is running in "Battery Optimized Mode" because the AC adapter output doesn't match the expected input. And finally, the AC adapter starts shooting sparks and burns through a portion of the power cable where is attaches to the adapter... All of these happened in less than two weeks of each other. I was in a bit of a bind and needed my laptop to be working ASAP, so I took apart the adapter removed the burnt wiring and rewired it... I probably no longer qualify for an exchange now...

I'm not a big Compaq fan at all, but being a lowly college student their prices looked very tempting. The model (R3000) I bought was $400 cheaper than the Dell equivalent. I figured if I paid a ton for the last Dell I bought and it only lasted 2 years that I might as well buy something cheap that will probably last just as long... I have been pleasantly surprised with its quality though. It feels very sturdy (yet light and cool) and it seems to be very solidly constructed (as opposed to my coworker's new Inspiron 5150 which feels about as sturdy as an cereal box with an LCD on it). Placement of ports and drives also seem more natural on my new laptop and it has the best sounding laptop speakers I've ever heard. Fedora Core 2 also runs very nicely on it, though I did have to use ndiswrapper to get the wireless working.

Re:grrrrr

[bobbozzo]

OK, I'm a business customer, so I guess that explains it.

The email support was going to India though, and it was very frustrating because the email support and phone support don't seem to be communicating with each other AT ALL, so I had to create new support requests when I called in because email support wasn't achieving much.

Re:grrrrr

[Nerd4News]

"Dell has moved their phone support back to US."

Uh... No. While you may get US support if all of the overseas lines are busy, most calls still go to India. For US based support you have to read between the lines of their support contract. "Advanced Level Technicians" (read US based) are only available with their Business Standard and Premium service plans. Business basic and consumer support still goes overseas.

We got Dells

[millahtime]

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.

Re:We got Dells

[Anonymous Coward]

But do it after you install the Superman III virus.

Re:We got Dells

[master control progr]

I believe you have my stapler.

Re:We got Dells

[Anonymous Coward]

in the event of a fire, grab as much paperwork and run towards the flames.

Re:We got Dells

[stienman]

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

Re:We got Dells

[Bob C. Cock]

That's the only good thing about this recall. Since my company is all Dell chances are good we'll finally be able to re-locate to that new facility we've all been wanting.

I just have to make sure I find my red swingline from the smoldering ruins.

Phew lucky

[paragon_au]

I still haven't need to charge my laptop since I got it in '98. Lucky huh? Or else I coulda been toast if I had plugged in that adapter.

Glad to see Dell's fast response to this problem.

Re:Phew lucky

[petersam]

I think you're missing the point - you use the AC adapter to power the laptop and/or charge the battery. They're the same thing. You get an extra adapter when you buy a port replicator, but it is the same model and can be interchanged. At least that's true on those Dell models and every other Toshiba and IBM laptop I've ever used.

Re:Phew lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

if I had plugged in that adapter

Apparently someone can't read...

(Obviously the grandparent is joking but you totally missed it)

Re:Phew lucky

[aldoman]

(I know the grandparent was a joke, BTW).

Surely if you had to charge the battery _aswell_ as use the AC adapter to power the laptop, you are going to be putting much more stress on it? Therefore, you will be at risk of the capacitors going shit, and catching on fire.

I wonder if they're made the same guys who...

[Graemee]

made the HP & Compaq adapters that were recalled.

Re:I wonder if they're made the same guys who...

[petersam]

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 past decades. So I see two problems - 1) a drive to use the cheapest components and designs as possible increasing the risk of a poor design that burns and 2) not enough basic research into power systems. I wish someone would spend some money on that.

Re:I wonder if they're made the same guys who...

[Anonymous Coward]

yes they are! just checked an adapter I didn't throw away after I got my new one in ~2002, and it's a Delta made in Thailand.

PS Lazy Coward rather than Anonymous Coward

Re:I wonder if they're made the same guys who...

[Loco3KGT]

Or the IBM adapters that have been recalled?

I just checked...

[Mattintosh]

I just checked a pile of these things here at work, and they're all 9364U's. D'oh!

Re:I just checked...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I have one of the 9364U part numbers too. But what the CNN article does not state is that it is only models manufactured by Delta. And the picture on Dell's web site shows they were manfuctured in Thailand and not China as the CNN article states.

Re:I just checked...

[bigjnsa500]

Same here on my Inspiron. I've even had to *repair* mine because of a loose cable. Unfortunately, after entering my information, Dell says this one isn't affected. Oh well .....

No problem with them here.

[glrotate]

GX260's right?

Maxstor drives I believe, at least for the last year or so.

Perhaps something in your environment.

Re:No problem with them here.

[Jhon]

Not JUST the 260s -- but there are a few included.

We're a medical lab. the environment is clean and fairly cool (72 pretty much all the time). Even office managers offices.

There's one of these back in the lab used for entering stuff as it comes in. Dusty (paper dust from opening request forms) as all hell. Haven't had a peep from this one either... Go figure.

Re:No problem with them here.

[laughing_gorilla]

40 GB Maxtor drives....Greater than 50% failure. GX270 MB We've seen 100% failure in one shipment of 17, and are now starting to see failures on some later shipments.

Re:No problem with them here.

[mjprobst]

GX50 medium-profile machines here have had nothing but constant hard drive failures since they were installed in our lab. And don't even get me started on the suckage of trying to do any CD burning with the low-profile CD-RW drives; they have a lifespan of about 3 months. Actually, CD burning on any of the Dells in our lab, which now include regular desktop-size GX60s as well, is horribly unstable, requiring frequent reboots and incantations.

Re:No problem with them here.

[hesiod]

Wierd. My company has bought about 30 GX260s, but only one's HD has died. Two Motherboards and 1 DDR RAM stick. The rest have worked fine. Maybe we're just REALLY lucky.

I don't think this is a new problem.

[RealAlaskan]

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.

Re:I don't think this is a new problem.

[mfh]

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.

[Cthefuture]

"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."

Re:I don't think this is a new problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

is this in reference to a particular car model? http://www.fordpinto.com/blowup.htm

Re:I don't think this is a new problem.

[93,000]

I personally don't like it when my single-serving friends just up and start talking to me about math problems.

Re:I don't think this is a new problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to return an inspiron AC adapter because it was smoking...

What was it smoking ? I want some of that stuff !

Wow.

[American AC in Paris]

You'd think they'd have a bit better luck working with technology that's been around since '86.

1886, that is.

Re:Wow.

[DragonWyatt]

1886, that is.

Switching-mode power supplies are a little bit newer than that, aren't they?

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah a little bit. The earliest example I was able to find with a cursory Google search was for a piece of World War 2 radio equipment. Search on "zerhacker power supply" to find a switched mode supply (granted, the switching was mechanical rather than electric) that took 12V (1A) to 100V 10mA, and 2V 0.75A. Surely the concept itself is older than that.

Gives a new meaning to:

[clem9796]

Man, that new laptop is hot!

Recalls in the IT industry

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very interesting. So far, recalls in the IT industry haven't been as big as in the car industry. But with so many parts going into every computer, the extreme price competition, and the ofen "non-critical" use attitue of manufacturers could lead to more frequent recalls in the future.

Of course they would only have to recall defects that pose potential dangers. It's only a matter of time untill a computer is recalled, because a child chocked after attempting to swallow one. Then they put the stickers on there to keep the computer out of the reach of children.

IBM too

[BaldGhoti]

First IBM, 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.

Hey Dell

[hype7]

Welcome to the club

-- james

If this were Apple...

[valkraider]

If this were Apple, people would threaten and sue, people would scream and cry, people would talk about how shoddy Apple stuff is.

Gotta love Slashdot.

I guess *anyone* who makes things or sells things can have a few bad lots come through the pipeline. Even flu shot manufacturers....

As a side note, this affects 9 out of 10 of the power bricks in our company... Pretty big deal...

Re:If this were Apple...

[Ctrl-Z]

How does this make Apple different from Dell? Don't people always complain about how shoddy Dell equipment is? In fact, if this was about Apple, you would have a lot more people defending Apple.

Re:If this were Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that Dell is acknowledging the problem. In at least some (note that I didn't say all) of the cases I have seen, Apple has refused to acknowledge the existance of many flaws and issues with their products.

Re:If this were Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple always recognizes it (just a matter of when) and often extends warranties and initiates recalls.

The only difference here is that it doesn't take Apple 4 years to do it.

Re:If this were Apple...

[Skater]

What are you talking about? Read some of the threads - plenty of Dell bashing going on, lawsuit threats, etc., and in comments posted before yours. I don't see anyone defending Dell.

--RJ

bzzzzzzt

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude......you're going to Hell !!!

Dude! You're getting a pile!

[mod_critical]

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).

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Moonwick]

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.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[cmowire]

Dude, you make it sound like IBM makes good hardware. But, in fact, hate my Stinkpad. Apparently, there's an astonishingly failure rate on the T30 mainboards. And we can't forget about IBM's 75GXP failure fun.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

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...

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[fimbulvetr]

Whoa there!

You put SUN in your list. That's just wrong. Sun has TONS of defects, but you won't find them recalling anything. Namely:

HUGE Cache problems with almost every Ultrasparc IIi

No link, but the A1000 defects that are fixed by literally 10's of patches.

Netras that have nics that don't work unless they auto-neg.

Ultras that have nics that don't work unless you hard set the speed.

I can go on, and on, and on...

Dell, Apple and Firestone deserve to be in that list..but Sun Doesn't.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[DigiShaman]

Dell knows of the DOA (Dead On Arival) and problems with their product reliability. They are in the business to make money quickly, quality reputation be damned.

Put it to you this way, it's actually profitable to do warranty replacement then spend the extra man hours and R&D to ensure every machine will work off the line.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[mod_critical]

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.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two bad products out of how many? Thats a pretty damned good track record.

I'll be buying IBM again, thats for sure.

Name me a company with a better track record. Oh, you cant.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Zarniwoop_Editor]

We used to have a saying about IBM. It went something like this .... IBM - Great service! (And yer gonna need it) I guess I expect everything I use to fail at some point, what matters to me is how fast and how well the company responds to fixing it. Just my 2 cents worth.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Skater]

Reading this thread makes me glad I bought a Fujitsu laptop for the second time. My first one (a Pentium 133 mind you) still works perfectly, the current one works well, and a couple other Fujitsu laptops family and friends have all seem to work very well after years of use...

--RJ

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Tanktalus]

When you can get your customers to do your QA for you, why not? Especially when they keep buying from ya.

(Never bought Dell - have two IBM PCs, 5 and 7 years old, still kicking!)

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Tenareth]

"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 really cared about price, then advertising wouldn't be nearly as effective for pushing crap products.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Wog]

A retailer I worked for in high school used IBM POS (point of sale) systems.

We called them "Inferior but marketable pieces of &$#!."

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[magarity]

While you've got a valid complaint that your particular unit needs repair, the other complaints seem rather petty to condemn the entire machine. All the Thinkpad users I know got the things partially because they like the trackpad better than those fingerpads on most notebooks. If you don't like trackpads don't take it out on the machine because your company makes you use it. IBM listened to other customers with the same complaint and has released a utility that lets you map any of the more otherwise useless keys (for example one of the Alts since there is a spare) into being a Windows key. They might even have updated the utility software that controls how the display works.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[EvilMagnus]

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 to really spend the cash.

Since each service call must cost Dell at least $100 (plus parts), I assume they lost money on those laptop sales. If that happens enough, their beancounters may demand that the machines work right first time. :)

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[cmowire]

Remapping the Stinkpad keyboard so that my fingers fall in the right place would probably require a certain amount of hardware bending. Otherwise, it would be about as useful as trying to get a old-style Sun-layout keyboard to act like a PC keyboard.

The problem is that my fingers expect a Windows key, an Alt key, and a Control key to the left of the spacebar. Other laptops accomidate this perfectly well. The other problem is that the keyboard controller itself is poorly designed. When I am using a full-size keyboard, I like to have the numeric keypad readily available as number keys -- numlock key on. As we all know, all of the numeric keypad functionality with numlock off is already accessible via other keys. However, IBM, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the numlock key not only means that I want numbers instead of cursor movement, but that it also means that I want the keyboard-overlay numeric keypad instead of alphabetic keys.

Between that and the still-not-fixed-as-of-a-few-months-back utility software means that there's an annoying ritual that I need to go through every single time I dock and undock my laptop.

And the thing is, IBM makes big noises about doing *research* about user interface and being *good* at it. Yet in so many cases, they've clearly just made things worse.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[llamaluvr]

I don't know about IBMs, dude...between 2000 and 2001 (and a little bit of 2002), at the Foutune 100 I work at, we've had about half of our leased NetVistas fall to bad capacitors on the mobo...that's like 200-250 computers. At least Dell called a recall...Not to mention that half of the floppy drives were broken when we got them back, despite never being used. It normally isn't a horrible thing, except lease companies charge you an arm and a leg if anything *inside* the computer is broken (a fraction of the entire computer's estimated cost- often well over $100).

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[ksheff]

Dell doesn't even make the laptops. They are all made by a handful of companies in Taiwan who then sell them to Dell, HP, Gateway, etc....

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the only rational solution is to buy a mac.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Lazyhound]

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.

Well, my excuse is that they seem to be the only company that sell laptops with both tracksticks (I HATE touchpads) and high-end video cards, and ship from Canada. Anyone know of any others?

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Nerd4News]

"Since each service call must cost Dell at least $100 (plus parts), I assume they lost money on those laptop sales. If that happens enough, their beancounters may demand that the machines work right first time. :)"

A little insight and I 'm in a position to know. I'm a service tech that does on site service for Dell.

In order to get on site service you first have to go through phone tech support. Unless you purchase one of the "elite" plans, this means dealing with outsourced techs overseas (guess where?) for a period of time that can easily run 2-4 hours. I have never had a customer tell me that it took less. Your chances of getting someone that knows his/her ass from a hole in the ground is about 20%.

Once a diagnosis is made that requires parts a service order is generated and the parts are shipped overnight to the tech. Chances are about 80 to 90% that the diagnosis is correct AND that you will get the right parts AND that the new (actually refurb) parts are not DOA or faulty in some way. If one of these 3 problems crop up the tech has to order new parts and schedule another visit.

Often times if they can't diagnose a problem with a specific part they'll just throw a box of parts at it. It's not unusual to get boxes of parts for desktops that contain a motherboard, power supply, ram, a cpu and even a new heatsink. Laptops get the same except for an AC adapter, fan/heatsink combo,palm rest and a shitload of plastic parts. They're called Hero or Party boxes and will fix most problems. The jobs we do the most are probably motherboard replacement and HD swaps. We go through a ton of these but considering the number of units Dell ships the percentage is probably fairly small.

Now for the cost. Take 2 to 4 hours of phone support at whatever the overseas rate is. Lets say $20 (a figure I pulled out of my ass). Sure the phone monkeys don't make anything but you can bet the company they work for does. Add an average $10 shipping to that (they get a "rate") plus the $65 that we get and you're pretty close to $100. To that add the cost of parts, the cost of the box and the guy that pulls, packs and slaps the label on it. Also add the cost of US infrastructure (building, equipment, warranty exec & other worker bee pay, etc) and you're well over $100.

The payoff: You and I wouldn't but Joe Six Pack would be scared to death to buy a computer without a warranty. All I've got handy is a Dell business computer catalog and they charge about $80 to $100 per year for an on site warranty (after jumping through hoops and going through phone support) depending on model and plan. Considering the huge number of units sold I'm betting that the number requiring service calls is relatively small. We don't have the info to crunch the numbers but you can bet Dell has. They're on site support is a profit center for them and I'll bet it's a pretty good one.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Nerd4News]

One other thing to think about. Considering the 500 pound gorilla status of Dell, you can probably count on them getting parts for free by making the manufacturer warranty them. Either that or they get another supplier. That lowers the cost of support quite a bit.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[Nerd4News]

"Dell doesn't even make the laptops. They are all made by a handful of companies in Taiwan who then sell them to Dell, HP, Gateway, etc...."

True with a minor quibble. Each company designs or contracts for a design per their specs then contracts for manufacturing. Your statement makes it sound like Taiwan & Co crank out laptops and slap a Dell or HP logo on them. While this may be true for the smaller labels, the larger companies have theirs "custom" built.

Re:Dude! You're getting a pile!

[ksheff]

Actually, according to this and this, its more likely that they are just slapping a Dell or HP logo on them and shoving them out the door. Maybe not the same exact one, but they buy exclusive rights to a particular design, and that's about it.

Dell products

[undoer]

the only dell products I would even consider buying are monitors: CRT, TFT, etc.. Glad I didn't go with a laptop from them..

Re:Dell products

[RicoX9]

" the only dell products I would even consider buying are monitors: CRT, TFT, etc.. "

You might want to reconsider. We have a LOT of Dell flat-panel 21" monitors. Power supply? Same exact one that came with my laptop, and will now need replacing.

Re:Dell products

[undoer]

Didn't realize this.. I've been using this P1110 crt for years..

I have friends who have dell flat-panel's, and they haven't had any problems as of yet..

I guess they're SOL and may need replacement ps's..

Thx for the info

Heh heh heh.

[Anonymous Coward]

My old high school purchased Dell laptops for their entire faculty. My college purchased laptops for their entire Collegiate High School group. I think they're Dells as well.

So, imagine the Beowulf cluster of flaming laptops...

Ha! I was right!

[paragon_au]

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:Ha! I was right!

[Anonymous Coward]

simply because he forgot to spell-check his post

Re:Dude! Your getting a lawsuit!

[Anonymous Luddite]

"a fire and electrocution risk."

class action suit in:

4
3
2
1
...

FYI

[Fascist Christ]

http://support.dell.com/support/batteryrecall/inde x.aspx/en/main?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

Re:FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

http://support.dell.com/support/batteryrecall/inde x.aspx/en/main?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

First Printers, now this...

[rosewood]

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.

Re:First Printers, now this...

[natron 2.0]

I agree my Inspiron 8200 gets damn hot on the ol' lap! This is the first laptop I have used that I was afraid to set on my lap!

Re:First Printers, now this...

[Ctrl-Z]

It gives a new meaning to the phrase "burn in".

Thank you, I'm here all week.

Re:First Printers, now this...

[clem9796]

I think it was Dell that got hit with a lawsuit from a guy who burned his "unit" on their "unit", (no ref, too lazy). They now include a disclaimer that says don't use it on your person because it may burn you. It's similar to a nut tray i received last Christmas.. "May contain traces of peanuts". Well, thanks for that!

Re:First Printers, now this...

[HydrusZ]

My Dell Latitude CPx gets way too hot to use on my lap, but the 9364U adapter that's been plugged in in my office for well over a year isn't even warm. Still, this might be a good time to get it off that stack of paper...

Re:First Printers, now this...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a reason for the peanut warning: some people will go into shock from eating them and could possibly die. The tray is probably generic and that warning will probably be there even if you only ordered ie. cashews.

Re:First Printers, now this...

[clem9796]

True, peaunts are dangerous for a few people, but including warnings for blatantly harmful (read: rediculous) actions by its' user is quite funny. I can see a candy bar manufacturer stating that their product may have came in contact with nuts during production. Good to know, but someone who is allergic to peanuts should know this already, and make knowing an important goal. You don't see diabetics up-ending a bag of sugar into their mouth do you?

Warning on hair dryer: Do not use while sleeping. (I mentioned this at a gathering of friends one night, and one guy actually said he uses one to warm his bed at night. Amazing)

Coffee containers: Warning: Hot. C'mon, you'd think they knew.

Lack of common sense is not grounds for a lawsuit!

Re:First Printers, now this...

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Peanuts are not nuts, some people would just assume that there are no peanuts in the tray.

Better safe than sorry.

Re:First Printers, now this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Legumes, sorry. When you see a cinnamon and sugar coated peanut, it's still a peanut. nut or not, that's what they call them.

Re:AC only? Crummy hard drives

[freeze128]

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.

problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure you can have my ac adapter back, except it's lost in a jungle of wires. Do I dare brave that danger?

Re:problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Zip ties my friend. Zip ties.

Hmm...

[mostly water]

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...'

Who would've thought?

[OxygenPenguin]

Man, i never would've guessed that those AC Adapters would be fire hazards. They only get hot enough to nearly burn you while in use, but I wouldn't have guessed fire hazard. (sarcasm)

Only those manufactured by "Delta" in Thailand

[Derling Whirvish]

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 and see if yours are the ones actually recalled.

Re:Only those manufactured by "Delta" in Thailand

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell sure got screwed by the vendor, who has outbid the other vendors for supplying the part. It has always been this way for all brand names, vendor vying to be a supplier. My roommate's fan from Walmart crapped out in a week. Nothing short of a return, but experience frustrate. As far as Dell, I'm sure they do much more QC on critical components, or defective adaptor did pass QC but test not long enough or take account of problem at hand. Yet that is a whole lot of parts to recall.

Re:Only those manufactured by "Delta" in Thailand

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool stuff. Mine's also an Astec from China. I'm very happy that I won't have to send it in.

Dell is missing an opporuntity here

[SuperKendall]

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

[angio]

I just finished reading a pretty cool book (Troubleshooting Analog Circuits) 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... :)

Re:Complexity of building switching power supplies

[Dielectric]

Mad Props to Bob Pease! I really enjoy his articles in EDN, as well.

As noted in the Amazon reviews, the other must-have is Art of Elelctronics by Horowitz/Hill.

Re:Complexity of building switching power supplies

[Neil Watson]

Today's recall could also illustrate the results of excessive cost cutting.

Malarki!

[wolf-]

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.

Re:Malarki!

[Yolegoman]

I have the same problem. After about 3 months of owning my Dell Inspiron 5100, the power cord (the adapter that actually slides INTO the laptop itself) got so damn hot it literally melted through the wire coating. When I put electricians tape over the wire to temporarily fix it, it melted through the electricians tape: literally, the tape became all gooey and it was hell to get it back off. They sent me another one, but I see the problem happening all over again... it's already starting to get frayed after another 4-5 months.

Re:Malarki!

[Anonymous Coward]

You should go check them on the recall site anyway. I had two 9364Us that were "Made in China" but the site accepted them anyway.

AC/DC ..... wwhhaatt?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dirty Deeds!
Done Dirt Cheap!

Won't get Trolled again.

[Doc Ruby]

Whoa - the parent *is* a troll, and I gave sword to troll! The parts were made by Delta electronics, of Taipei, Taiwan. While those Taiwanese might very well have manufactured them in a Chinese factory across the straits, the Taiwanese are reknowned for their quality - that's why they literally invented the notebook computers we all use, and own the market. Now, perhaps their profits are invested in the parent's "blame China" astroturfing campaign...

Re:Won't get Trolled again.

[bobbozzo]

Within the last 5 years, Taiwanese capacitor companies poorly copied an electrolyte solution from Japanese capacitor companies and there have been MANY early failures and product recalls because of this, including some by Apple, and most of the Taiwan motherboard manufacturers (Asus, ...).

With risk of fire.

Re:Won't get Trolled again.

[hesiod]

> Taiwanese capacitor companies poorly copied an electrolyte solution from Japanese capacitor companies

Is this the same as the motherboard problems with Gigabyte, et al? Wasn't the problem there that someone stole the "formula" and left out a critical chemical? Maybe I'm remembering something else.

Re:Won't get Trolled again.

[bobbozzo]

Yes.

Reaches in bag...

[Spoing]

...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.)

How to get it

[asyncster]

I looked over at my inspiron adaptor, and it is a 9364u. If you have one of the models, go to Dell's site .

Won't get Trolled again

[Doc Ruby]

whoops

Re:Won't get Trolled again

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet the new Dell
Same as the old Dell
...

We don't get fooled again

Delladapter.com is down....

[cbelt3]

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..."

Re:Delladapter.com is down....

[christech]

I would like to point out that most cases of very high failure rates particularely burn outs adn such at one location are not the fault of the manufacturers. yes it does happen once in a while.

Most likely the facility needs to check its wall power supply. surge strips suppress fluctuations but over time equipment will still die. Also high room rempature or humitity kills computers, as does incorrect placement. you must provide room for air circulation.

finally dell does some testing before shipping or else you would see much higher rates of Dead on Arival. The best regared hardware manufactures still ship a lot of dead parts. when you consider all the parts in as system that could be bad. YOu have at least a 10% change one or more is dead on arival, with high quality manufacturers and much higher with bad companies.

Reading some of the comments on part failures some are clear examples of computer abuse. particualrely when computers are loaned out.

Obligitory Fight Club Reference

[ARRRLovin]

"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."

firefighters and the /. effect

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope my local firemen(persons...) aren't as slashdotted as the website and 800 number(1-800-418-8590) are. At least if I can't get mine recalled, my house might not burn down all the way to the ground

Underengineered

[gregarican]

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...

Re:Underengineered

[B1gP4P4Smurf]

Christ, you mean these "fanless" boards actually have a fan in the outboard power supply?!? What a rip! People buy fanless hardware because they need it to be quiet. Thanks fot the tip, I will avoid these.

Re:Underengineered

[B1gP4P4Smurf]

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...

Christ, you mean these "fanless" boards actually have a fan in the outboard power supply?!? What a rip! People buy fanless hardware because they *need* it to be quiet, say for sound recording. Thanks for warning me before I bought one!

So is there still no such thing as a truly fanless PC?

Re:Underengineered

[B1gP4P4Smurf]

Argh, fucking slashdot back-button bug.

If your web application breaks when users use the back button it is BROKEN!

Best laptop...

[Gunfighter]

... 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/chassis.

Stock drop?

[nfsilkey]

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?

[El]

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.)

Re:Huh?

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

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.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still using one - at home: an old one from a busted laptop, at the office: the ones that shipped with the laptop which is about a year old. Hmm, gotta chacke the 'supply at home.

Re:Huh?

[Malc]

This covers my Inspiron 7500. It's a P3-650 with 452MB memory. I replaced the battery earlier in the year. It's got a few years of use left in it yet! It's running Windows XP, Office 2003 and VS.Net 2003 just fine. It has USB and DVD too.

Is it hot in here?

[techwolf]

or is it the fire from under my desk?

Mandatory movie quote.

[baadfood]

Take the number of adapters out in the field: A. Multiply by the probable rate of failure: B. Multiply by the average cost of an out of court settlement: C.

A times B times C equals X.

If X is less than the cost of a total recall, we dont do one.

Tyler Durden (paraphrased :P)

Re:Mandatory movie quote.

[man_ls]

I propose mandatory, permanant subnet bans for anyone who quotes Fight Club in any kind of a discussion, ever.

I hate that movie so much, and the idiots it spawned, you have no idea.

My Company

[Dak_Peoples]

Employs well over 90,000 people. Each with a Laptop. This is going to be a nightmare for our IT Dept. See what happens when you go for the lowest bidder :) Anyone else's work affected?

Re:My Company

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the military LOVES Dell laptops, they are going to have a hell of a time with this one...

Dell, saving our stockholders 5 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

by purchasing the cheapest crap possible in China.

Dodgy Plugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else noticed how crappy the plugs are on these Dell adapters? The ferrite coil is about an inch from the plug and the insulation in the gap between likes to rip itself apart, eventually after all the strands are broken you lose the ground.

Hrm, I was about to buy another replacement, cheers Dell for two new adapters! OTOH, the adapter is left on 24/7 underneath my bed, yeah, cheers Dell!

As a Macintosh user...

[trudyscousin]

...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.

Re:As a Macintosh user...

[evilviper]

No no no. You'll be just fine if you go with any other manufacturer than Dell. They've been making flamable equipment for a long time now. Monitors, batteries, power supplies, etc. If you can name it, Dell has made it, and it's caught on fire.

Why do Apple users think the world revolves around them?

Re:As a Macintosh user...

[NDPTAL85]

Why do Apple users think the world revolves around them?

Because it does.

The Link

[Zara2]

Some people had the link wrong. It is https://www.delladapterprogram.com/Main.aspx and running just fine for me.

Same problem here

[SuperKendall]

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.

My worst nightmare ... NOT!

[Leykis101]

I used to support lots and lots DELL laptops. My former department purchased a few hundreds of them to brib^H^H^^H^H^H^H for a certain of group of people so that they can do their Academic work "better".

As of the past 3 years, I have been recommending less and less DELL computers do to a high rate of DOA's and defective units. It goes up to 30% of the DELL computers we purchased.

---
For those who missed one part of The Tom Leykis Show about the girl who asks for donation for her UCLA funds.

Here's her website, and ask yourself if this is for real.

pffrt

[NetNifty]

Once again, a PC manufacturer copies something Apple did ages ago!

Certified Electronics?!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how did these millions of adapters pass CE, CSA, etc etc testing?

Looking at the bottom of my adapter, it's litterally covered with approvals from various safety organizations.

Re:AC only? Crummy hard drives

[dgatwood]

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. Conner was the best up until that point, and I still have Conner 40/80MB drives that work reliably to this day. We're talking about a hard drive that's around 15 years old. -That- is quality construction, and Seagate inherited their design knowledge. It explains a lot.

Just my $0.02.

Common part

[LightStruk]

First IBM, 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.

Right you are - in both cases the AC adapters were made by Delta Electronics of Thailand.

Even besides that Dell AC adapters are Crap IMO

[bogie]

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.

Re:Even besides that Dell AC adapters are Crap IMO

[Primis]

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.

I worship my Inspiron 4000.

Then again, I got it barely-used with two batteries, two adapters, and a bunch of other crap for ~$350. So... yeah, if you dropped $1500 on it new, I'd guess it'd be annoying. However, the only problem I ever had with mine was the mouse wigging out -- and that was easily solved by disabling the little red touchknob thingy in the keyboard.

But yeah, the two adapters I have are the original and an extra/spare purchased at the same time as the laptop. I've had no problems with either of them. I suppose I should investigate this though and see what I maybe need to do for the recall.

-- Primis.

Re:Even besides that Dell AC adapters are Crap IMO

[madcow_ucsb]

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

Re:Even besides that Dell AC adapters are Crap IMO

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a new Dell laptop yesterday (my 2nd), and I see that for the Inspiron 1000, at least, they've changed the power cord from the bullshit they were pulling with my past one. Now instead of the funky square thing that plugs into the computer that you can't find anywhere else but Dell, I've got a nice round plug that I can probably pick up a duplicate for at any good computer hardware store.

(AC because idiot user forgot her password and is too lazy to recover/change right now)

Re:Even besides that Dell AC adapters are Crap IMO

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

And none of that has anything to do with you dropping it?

I've got a 4150 and I've got none of the problems you guys are complaining about.

Re:Even besides that Dell AC adapters are Crap IMO

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you. I love my Lattitude C810. Not a single problem with it, ever. It's also built like a friggin' tank. I dropped it once from a height of about 4 feet onto a tile floor. Considering that this thing weighs like 8-9lbs and the only damage that occurred was a small chip in the plastic I was amazed.

All the naysayers out there are of course going to talk about "all Dell's being crap" because those are the only times that the issue of quality is even questioned. I've purchased and administrated entire networks of entirely Dell servers, workstations and laptops without so much as a single problem. No bad displays, motherboards, NIC's, memory, HDD's, power supplies...nothing.

Re:Even besides that Dell AC adapters are Crap IMO

[green1]

luckilly my Dell laptop belongs to the company I work for and not to me... I'm on my 3rd screen (the previous 2 each started getting wonky lines through them and then they got out of synch so they would "roll"... I'm on my second power supply, and (although i can't get to the site to verify this as it is /.ed) I beleive I now need to replace this one too as it seems to be the right part number and I know it runs EXTREMELY hot, and I have my second motherboard on order, expected to arrive... yesterday... (current one has the problem of loose connection in the power connector causing the machine to jump back and forth from battery to AC)

I'm also on my 2nd air-card wireless adapter... but that's not a Dell component...

Disclaimer, I'm pretty hard on this thing, I'm a field tech for a telco, this machine is constantly open and on in a moving vehicle, it comes in to customers houses with me, and is subject to more abuse than i'd like to admit. so all in all, it's actually doing pretty well, though nothing like the old IBM armoured laptops we used to have... those things could be used under the tires if you got the truck stuck and would probably be undamaged... (ok... never tried it... but they were pretty heavilly armoured) those ones never seemed to cause anyone any trouble, they just worked. I'd say we really need "armoured" laptops... but higher ups don't want to pay for 'em... (never mind that in calgary alone we have a person who's full time job it is to repair the current laptops (and I'm not talking software, this guy's only job is to swap out hardware in these dell laptops...) I'd think that his sallary might help offset the cost of more durable machines...

disappointed

[happyfrogcow]

over 90 posts and not one Anonymous Coward (AC adapters) joke in sight.

what, is everyone asleep?

Re:disappointed

[Kehvarl]

Well I was.. until you woke me up with that observation.

Slashdot saves my rear again

[doombob]

I'm glad that I read this at work. We were about to order about 40 off lease laptops with this problem, but instead the company that we buy from will have to deal the with the it. This saves many valuable man hours of me filling out a form and waiting for the replacements to come in. P.s. anyone want to purchase and off-lease Dell Latitude C600? Think of all the possiblilities for you insurance fraud pros out there.

Keeped?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! And my friends called me an idiot when I keeped buying new batteries for my laptop instead of just recharging the old one

With grammar like that, your friends are correct.

Note to MODs

[DigiShaman]

How is this a Troll? So I worked at Dell and you don't like my insite into how the company operates? Sounds like a Dell fanboy to me that doesn't like what I posted.

Underpowered too

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't have a problem with my adapter overheating, I had a problem with it not providing enough power (45 watts, I believe). Coupled with the fact the internal battery-recharger died, I was basically fucked with that laptop. I ended up ordering a Hewlett Packard power supply. It had considerably more amperage (60 watts), and the connector had a 90 degree bend.

The Dell power supplies (both desktop and laptop) just suck. At least the laptops don't have a proprietary plugs, so you can choose whatever is better; which ends up being a Radio Shack jobb for $4.50 and some duct-tape.

Seen it in action.

[loto]

A friend of mine had his AC adapter replaced due to it smoking and setting on fire. The thing was sitting right next to him too. I even saw the burn marks on his pants. Not cool. He called Dell that evening, and the managers pleaded and begged him not to sue the company. My friend was too nice, though, and only asked for a replacement adapter (which arrived the next day.) Probably explains why his customer service turnaround is so much faster than anyone else I have met

No Battery... and no power?

[GopherDylan]

So this means that not only does my battery no longer hold a charge (not covered under warrenty because it lasted just over a year); the power supply might also burst into flames?

I'm not too worried though. I have an IBM powersupply that was recalled too but I have yet to do anything about it.

Wow, only a month after...

[mwagner_00]

Only a month after I bought a replacement power adapter for my laptop... For the exact same reasons described in the recall. It overheated, and then some of the plastic melted away. It was rendered useless. Too bad my warranty was out of effect.

ZAP

[Anonymous Coward]

I have actually been shocked by one of these.

Re:Dude! Your getting a lawsuit!

[fitten]

0 ????
-1 Profit!!!

They are "consumables"

[Anonymous Coward]

The LiON battery will still hold a charge, but they eat-themselves just as a matter of their functionality. They are a consumable battery just like an alkaline.

I've always wondered why LiON batteries aren't required to be rated for total number of ampere-hours of use.

Here's a article describing their expected lifecycle.

An excerpt:

------

Aging of lithium-ion is an issue that is often ignored. lithium-based batteries have a lifetime of 2-3 years. The clock starts ticking as soon as the battery comes off the manufacturing line. The capacity loss manifests itself in increased internal resistance caused by oxidation. Eventually, the cell resistance will reach a point where the pack can no longer deliver the stored energy, although the battery may still contain ample charge. Increasing internal resistance is common to cobalt-based lithium-ion, a chemistry that is found in laptops and cell phones. The lower energy dense manganese-based lithium-ion, also known as spinel, maintains the internal resistance through its life but loses capacity due to chemical decompositions.

I hate you people.

[Zeriel]

Somehow you cocks managed to slashdot support.dell.com AND dellpoweradapters.com, now what am I supposed to do with this piece of overheating junk?

Re:I hate you people.

[hansoncoyne]

do you have a web site we could mirror the dell recall info at?

Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

I just found that my girl friends laptop has this problem about 2 days ago. I was worried and figured it was defective but now I know what the true problem. The adapter got really hot and I unplugged it. It just happened to be in our baby's room. Not a good thing at all.

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

A Tennessee man employed in the IT department of a major company knew about the issues with these laptop power supplies for some time. For safety purposes, he installed small CO2 canisters in all the laptop power supplies of a major company. It was his hope if they caught fire that it would melt the end and the CO2 would extinguish the fire. The idea was sound enough but he failed to take into account how much pressure is in those CO2 canisters, so rather than preventing a fire, the result was flaming molten plastic power supplies, flaming molten plastic power supplies that flew out the windows and ignited several cars.

box 'o' busted parts

[hansoncoyne]

i wonder if they take back the one i have with the connector busted/shorted due to a poor design? hopefully its in the right lot. good thing a keep all broken computer parts in a big box in my basement. too bad the site is slashdotted. anybody need a 2Gb HD? how about a sony vaio pcg-505 lcd? oh, here's a 8 port 10 Mb 3Com hub with 2 bad ports. lots of wall warts... what do you do with this shit? everyone has the same box ... it isn't even worth ebaying.

Irony at its finest

[gregarican]

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.

Re:Made In China

[danknight]

Were those cheap China parts really cheaper than the American made ones I'd say yes. It's a numbers game. If the lawsuits are less than the recall, you fight the people suing, If it looks like the Lawsuits are going to cost more... Plus, the product is 2 to 4 yeas old. that is positively ancient in laptop terms. I have a dell laptop in that age range that I got 2nd hand,(I use it to tune my car) If I didn't read /. what are the odds that I'd even know about the recall ?

Spoiler Warning

[joepa]

"Are there a lot of those kinds of accidents?"

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

[Mike Rubits]

Stock up now for the cold winter ahead!

delta electronics

[Anonymous Coward]

delta electronics also make the power supplies in the XBOX that eveyone is having problems with!!!
With a side note that the supply in the xbox is enineered to be UNDER RATED by about 50%

It Figures

[qray]

I just ran over the cord on mine with my chair and shorted the dang thing out. Just ordered a new one and read this. But it figures, mine isn't on the list :-(

/.ed Dell

[cnsc1rtr]

from CNN article:

Customers can also contact Dell at 1-800-418-8590 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, or consult Dell's Web site at http://www.delladapterprogram.com"

Both the website and the phone number are unavailable right now. I didn't think someone like Dell could get /.ed...

This is all kinda funny because I've always used my defective adaptor to keep my feet warm.

Not only those manufactured by "Delta" in Thailand

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got two sitting here on my desk, made in China, 7832D, which that site says are both affected.

So definitely go check, regardless of where it was made.

Re:Dude! Your getting a lawsuit!

[parcel]

From what I've heard (and my experience with my own) there should have already been a class action suit with the Inspiron 8000's... Supposedly they were build with a bios or chipset designed for desktop systems, not laptop systems, which was quickly hacked together to provide battery power management. So, until about 30 bios revisions had been made, the systems killed batteries. I know mine lasted about 4 months before it would no longer hold a charge. Dell of course refused to replace it, even though it went bad under warranty... they'd only send me back and forth between tech support and customer service, neither of which would take responsibility for or escalate my problem.

Although, I also had to have the screen replaced twice, motherboard 3 times, hdd once, and keyboard four times. So maybe I just got a lemon. Either way, I also have an IBM thinkpad that must be 10 years old by now (it's a 486) that has never had the slightest of problems. Next time I'm in the market, IBM gets my money.

I cant find a link to the bios/chipset issue anymore... I know I read about it in a few different places. Anyone have any more info?

Service Unavailable

[Kalak]

Dell must be using those adaptors to run the servers the recall is being run from as http://www.delladapterprogram.com/ is giving a "Service Unavailable". Hope the fire department in Austin is ready for this...

Blame the part maker, not Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so hard on Dell. Dell didn't actually build the power supply, just like everyone else. The vendor of the power supply will sure have some 'splaining to do!!

Re:AC only? Crummy hard drives

[cymen]

In my experience, the later Quantum Fireballs are just fine (20+ GB 7200 RPM models). The earlier ones had a bad reputation.

Oh Great

[Holi]

I am sitting here with 2 of these damn things. I sure hope they get em back to me fast as my battery doesn't last that long.

Maybe this caused laptop problem...

[WilliamGeorge]

My wife had a Dell laptop, Inspirion 4150 I think, that died mysteriously when she plugged it in to the AC adaptor one day. I wonder if the adapter, which appears to fall under this recall, could have caused it? It was a few months over a year old, and so just out-of-warranty, but she is still stuck making payments on it to Dell. I took it apart since their tech support said it would cost something on the order of $800-900 to fix it (it would need a new MB, plus the standard repair fee). It seemed to have some burnt smell originating from near the adaptor socket, but I couldn't get it all the way apart to verify any physical damage. If Dell were to admit that these were faulty adaptors, then would they replace her whole laptop rather than just the AC adaptor (which is still working)?

That explains a lot

[Stonent1]

That's why I keep sending them back. They get too hot to hold.

Username

[FreeLinux]

It appears that the original poster's username is an accurate description of them. The "logic" that he is using for future PC purchases is very fuzzy indeed.

I know why it's happening!

[93 Escort Wagon]

This overheating is probably due to the huge amount of current being pulled by those desktop Pentium 4 CPUs they stuff in a bunch of their laptops.

Why am I not suprised....

[Anonymous Coward]

A year ago or so, I had to replace the power supply in a (desktop) Dell Optiplex that failed. Much to my dismay, turning on the system with a new ATX power supply resulted in sparks and smoke coming from the back of the system. The power supply/motherboard had standard ATX connections and no special markings; the manuals don't say anything special about it. But it turns out (if you closely compare the circuit board's ATX-like connector to the ATX specs) that the motherboard's ATX connector is shifted by 2 rows or so - that is, what should be the leftmost 4 pins are on the right end of the motherboard. (Why would you do this? It'd be like making a serial port shaped like a power plug...) The net result of this seems to be shorting +12 volts to +5 volts (or something similar). Dell's tech support people basically said "we don't care".

So, I guess it's not really too suprising that other Dell power supplies catch fire, too. I'm sure they have some bright people working there, but I guess they're not in power supply engineering.

Re:Why am I not suprised....

[lp_bugman]

You are not supposed to say "I replaced the PSU" the right way is to just pretend ignorance...
I just turned on the thing one day and smoke came our of it. Can you mail me a new PC. I realy need to use Kazaa

So Why do I...

[thinwater]

So why do I have to read about this recall via news/tech sites? After buying my Dell Laptop, I filled out their registration card including everything but my blood type and fast food preference. Why aren't they data mining their vast amount of sales info and sending me a email if (and only if) my adapter is actually one that needs to be recalled. Way to be a "high tech" company and not be able to know what they sold and to whom.

Incident Type:Other Don't Know

[k_stamour]

Customer Information
System Type: Latitude D600
Ship Date: 3/18/2004 12:00:00 AM
Name:foo bar

Support Request Information:

Incident Type:Other Don't Know

(cut)
Problem Description:
PROBLEM DETAILS:The PA-1650-05D power supply ceased producing DC output within the rated specifications after emitting a pungent odor and a visible excrement of black smoke.

Ob. pun

[lpangelrob2]

"Oooooooo00h! BURN!!!" -Apple

I don't think so...

[Liquid Len]

Mine seems to work without any troNO CARRIER

Re:Dude! Your getting a lawsuit!

[ethanms]

My Latitude CPx is like frankenstein at this point... very few parts are original...

But w/ the 3 year on-site Dell has always showed up within a day or two to fix it...

So on the one hand it breaks alot... on the other, they fix it as long as you pay for the contract...

Crossing my fingers... the 3 years expired 6 months ago and I haven't a problem... but that CPU fan is getting noisy...

Obligatory references:

[Cervantes]

-"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!

Common sense that a factory *had* nuts in it?

[The Darkness]

I can see a candy bar manufacturer stating that their product may have came in contact with nuts during production. Good to know, but someone who is allergic to peanuts should know this already, and make knowing an important goal. You don't see diabetics up-ending a bag of sugar into their mouth do you?

Sugar is an obvious ingredient (not necessarily listed directly as sugar) on the package. Your flippant remark about diabetics isn't relevant.

"Being in contact with peanuts" doesn't have an associated ingredient listing. It just means they've reused some machines that at one point had nuts in them and the oils or actual physical pieces of nut may have made its way into the unrelated product. Check candy some time that has that warning; not all of them actually have a nut listed as an ingredient.

What, do you want me to say "oh, this candy bar was manufactured in.. New York. Let's see if that factory ever made a product that had nuts in it."

I don't think so.

Coffee containers: Warning: Hot. C'mon, you'd think they knew.

Please go do some research before touting the McDonalds coffee incident as "common sense." McDonalds was in the wrong and the woman received third degree burns.
A cursory google for "McDonalds Lawsuit" brings up:
McFacts
Liebeck lawsuit

Re:Dude! Your getting a lawsuit!

[Shadow Wrought]

very few parts are original...

Except of course, I'm guessing, the diodes up and down its left side;-)

www.firemarshals.org -- electronics flammable

[ankhank]

The Association of State Fire Marshals -- has been telling the truth about this for some years now.

Consumer electronics can ignite from as little heat as a candle flame then put out enough volatile gases to cause a rapid flash fire.

This is not theoretical, this is real life and death stuff.

http://www.firemarshals.org/news/pdf/statement_of_ the_nasfm.pdf/

My excerpts, see original for more: ...

Statement of the National Association of State Fire Marshals on Effective Fire Safety Standards for Computers and Consumer Electronics
September 24, 2002

"... I have some questions and concerns that I would like to pose to you.

"In August, I was given a copy of an e-mail circulated within the computer industry about their attendance at this workshop. It outlined a strategy where fire fighters and environmentalists would cancel each other out at this meeting ... leaving the industry to proceed as it wishes. But it cautioned companies to stay away - after all, who would want to get caught in the crossfire? ...

"Let's get the dead cat on the table.

"A few years back, a newsletter called "CPSC Watch," ridiculed the National Association of State Fire Marshals for raising questions about computer fires. Some of you have used this newsletter to attack us. We know that some of you received copies of it from industry ... and have actually used this garbage to criticize us....

"They tried and failed to kill our federal grants last year. For the record, that is where we get virtually all of our funding. ...

"Is there a problem with computer fires? There is absolutely no question that some popular products ignite very easily and would burn fast enough to engulf a room and then a house faster than a fire department could arrive.

"There have been some tragedies ... there is litigation. Underwriters Laboratories and the international standards organizations are taking it seriously - they are now starting to rewrite the fire safety standards for computers and other electronic equipment....

"If someone has told you that this is not a problem ... they are not telling you the truth.

"Have there been many of these fires? Every year, we have tens of thousands of electrical fires serious enough to require fire department responses. Most of these fires are not investigated carefully.

"Here in California, there have been entire years when no fire incidents were reported to the national data system. In my own state, I have seen them ... and learned that they were classified as just an electrical fire.

"But, with hundreds of millions of computers in homes, workplaces and schools ... of course there are fires involving computers.

"With many of these products made with significant volumes of highly combustible plastics ... of course there are fires.

"With more than 30 recalls of AC adapters, power strips and computer extension cords considered to be fire hazards ... of course there are fires involving computers.

"You want data? Ask the computer manufacturers. Every one of them has data on fires involving their own products.

"But it is a stupid debate.

"How would you feel ...

"Well ... we are outraged that anyone would put a highly combustible product in a child's room and then have the nerve to say we should wait for some significant number of fatalities.

"You want to see courage? Talk to a teenager who has just undergone a year's worth of surgery and rehabilitation after being seriously burned. Tell me that a manufacturer has a right to place even one child in a hospital bed for two years. ...

"We want bad products -

Not Made In China but made in Taiwan

[Anonymous Coward]

Says CNET in http://news.com.com/Millions+of+Dell+power+adapter s+recalled/2100-1041_3-5403129.html

New Inspiron 600 Overheats

[grossinm]

I have an Inspiron I bought in the spring of 2004, and it overheats constantly, to the point that I get bluescreens of death saying the hard drive is gone... I let it cool and it comes back to life. So I would guess that this problem still plagues them...

Re:Made In China

[TheSleeplessKnight]

I'm just really pleased that my I.T. Director decided to forward this little tidbit to the 2500 remote users tonight, just in time for me to field their panicky calls until 11pm tonight. Perfect.

Say what you want...

[craenor]

But find me another company that'll initiate a recall of almost 1 million ac adapters, because of 7 reported problems...none of which resulted in injury.

2004=2002=?

[coyotedata]

And why was Dell cooking this story for two years? The nice feature about the adaptor is that the wire from the adaptor to the PC is hard wired while the wire from the wall to the adaptor is not. Of course you can buy a new adaptor for one third or less if you are willing to settle for a non-official adaptor. Did Dell forget to tell you you cannot renew your warantee-well you forgot to ask to.

Mobile phone turns my adapter off

[magicmonster]

I've noticed that sometimes when I receive a call on my mobile, if its placed near the power brick, the brick will turn itself off. I need to wait a couple of mins and plug and unplug it until it works again. Now I keep a battery inside the laptop just in case. I suppose they've always warned that mobile phones can affect electronics :)

Safety Certifications?

[NachoDaddy]

I would like to point out that the picture from CNN shows that these power supplies have just about ever safety a regulatory approval known to man, including UL, CE, and many others I can't identify.
This supports my belief that regualtory and test agencies have absolutely no control of products coming from the far east. In my position, I regularly see AC adapters that have UL file numbers stolen from other products, or even revoked numbers. Not to mention AC adpaters that have UL and CE marks that won't pass when tested by a reputable test lab.
Another unseen victim of this is US manufacturers that try and use these supplies, only to find out that they are all crap. Dell has the budget to go to Delta in Tapei and inspect the factory, but most do not.
The big problem is that there are no US federal laws on product safety. UL is a private company, and is heavily corrupt and inconsistant.
For UL to fix this, they need to:

• Have consistant enforcement worldwide
• Stop letting AC adapter manufacturers put 200 different models under one file #
• Start revoking file numbers for known violators
• Make the US Customs stop products at the ports that have the mark and shouldn't (copyright violation)

Anything short of a revolution inside UL is not going to get the job done.

Same supplier as recalled IBM adaptors

[Anonymous Coward]

The maker of these power adaptors, Delta Electronics, is the same one who made the recalled IBM power adaptors. Delta is the market leader in OEM power supplies and sells to many manufacturers. Will other bands of laptops have similar problems? Time will tell...

Posted anonymously--I have to deal with these people!

Joke explanation [you've been warned]

[owlstead]

In case you don't geddit, this is probably a quote from the movie fight club.

slapped on a heatsink!

[flibberdi]

I have the model: 90FB REV B and it used to shut down, everytime this happened i noticed that it was burning hot (Since I have been messing with my kernel, Klaptop didn't work, hence no warning...) so I ripped out a big heatsink from an optiplex gxl 5100 (133 MHz?) and GLUED it to the adapter. Problem fixed! I wish slashdot had a way of publishing pics so you could see it (very ugly)...

Safety marks

[owlstead]

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?

Re:Dude! You're in bed with Microsoft.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what Dell gets for letting Microsoft help them design their computers so they won't run Linux!
There is no /dev/hda!
They have it /dev/hde, so if you put a /KNOPPIX folder in /dev/hde, your boot floppy cannot find it!
You are forced to run off the live CD!
But: (here's the good news). The Microsoft XP os requires LOTS of ram, so if you load your linux os with the "toram" option, you are home free!

Where?

[Anonymous Coward]

About 990,000 of those were sold to US consumers, 1.5 million to US businesses, and the rest where outside the US.

Where outside the US?

Re:Dude! Your getting a lawsuit!

[racermd]

The Dell i8200 I purchased in July '02 hasn't experienced nearly the failures others have been reporting. Then again, I usually operate mine near power outlets and usually sitting on a stable, hard surface. The only problem I've had is the latch for the media bay has snapped and disappeared (probably because I usually keep a second battery in that spot, which is quite heavy).

As far as the power-supply is concerned, I have two - one with the laptop, the other with the docking station. Neither one of them is affected by the recall. However, I DO get very concerned about the heat these things generate when operating the computer and charging the batteries at the same time. Both of them get too hot to touch after just 10 minutes of use from room temps. I know that Dell has been aware of this problem before, because I've called support for this very issue. The article states that they are aware of 7 cases. I'm sure that more than 7 people have called to complain about this.

However, I'm not terribly surprised by Dell limiting the recall to just particular part numbers, even if it's a design flaw to begin with. It's the old, "Just enough to get by" mentality for Q/A.

And IBM laptops aren't immune, either. My company has a number of older X300s that have their fair share of problems. Most of them are mobo I/O errors (failing and generating errors in POST - not just memory problems) and hard drive failures. One out of four in our current supply have fatal problems. Again, it's a case of too much cost-cutting that creates a sub-standard product.

My i8200 hasn't been the greatest laptop I've ever owned, but it's far from the worst. I still use it on a daily basis and don't have very many bad things to say about it's performance and stability. And despite the problems with the power supply, I will probably buy another Dell when this has outlived it's useful life as my primary portable. It's cost/performance and cost/reliability is good from my own experience. The only other laptop I would consider is the Sony super-slim line, as my old 505TR was simply amazing and would sell my right nut for a new one. That is, if I was willing to afford a laptop that wouldn't need replacement 2 years earlier than it's larger competition.

I've been with various companies that have used many other brands of laptops. I've found that the Sony super-slims are fairly reliable, even if they're a bit behind in the CPU/RAM department. And Dell can get you half-decent computers in just about any quantity you want in a resonable timeframe. At this point, I wouldn't consider any other brands.

Try the return process -- here's what I got

[JavaRob]

Dell clearly doesn't realize how fast information travels nowadays.

The site they set up was already dying when I got on yesterday afternoon, and when I called the 800 number I got a voice saying something like "All circuits are busy. EF-38472" from their PBX.

I tried again around 3am, on my way to bed. Website still down.

This morning I tried and got an error message. Just tried again... and it looks like they've finally figured it out, and the page to verify your adapter is no longer using SSL. YES my adapter is affected (damn). So I made my order for a new adapter.

Guess how many people have successfully ordered a new one so far, out of the millions recalled (and the presumably millions trying to hit the site)?
Well, it's not conclusive evidence, but my order number is 3678.

I know, no company likes spending more money than necessary on a recall, but if you're a company that sells webservers, you might want to, you know, show that you know how to set one up.

I have a newer dell power supply but its dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone tell me proper date code that will allow me to order a new adapter?

Re:I have a newer dell power supply but its dead

[Anonymous Coward]

And a proper Manufacturing ID... ;)