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

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

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.

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... :)

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.