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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."
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.
[insert witty sig here]
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...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
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.
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.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
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.
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.
-EvilMagnus
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...
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.
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?