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Alan Cox's Exploding Laptop
Bowie J. Poag writes to mention a page put up to commemorate the explosion of Alan Cox's laptop. From the article: "Alan was on the other side of the room from the laptop. I was elsewhere. He yelled out, I ambled towards the room in my own good time, and then I heard 'Fire! Real fire! Call the fire brigade, now!' and I speeded up a bit. From Alan subsequently, I gather there was an explosion and flying pieces of laptop, and a fireball, and a couple of fires started where (presumably) boiling battery landed, and one fragment smashed an LCD monitor. And then there was smoke and smell (there is still smell) and smoke alarm wailing and firemen and sirens and paramedics (happily unneeded) and police and a man with a notebook asking questions for the fire report.'"
Question: With all of the exploding batteries lately (Apple, Dell, Toshiba, IBM/Lenovo (possibly), etc. Have you seen any reports of Sony laptops exploding?
;)
Does Sony "cherry-pick" the A-grade batteries for their own use and send the B-grade and lower ones to their clients?
If so, what kind of liability issues does that raise. Sony HAS done some questionable things in the past knowingly.
Someday we'll all look back on this and plow into a parked car.
"What? Exploding laptop and you're running linux? Oh, we don't cover that."
:-)
Sorry, but I believe HP has a trademark on that phrase, as I was so exquisitly told by the circuit city folks when I indicated that the HP5320dv I'd just bought would probably have linux on it in less than 48 hours. I picked up the warranty form and said, well, I just guess the lawyers will have to sort that out now won't we? It did get FC5 installed as soon as I could make backups to dvd's, and works great with FC5 on it except for the broadcom radio in it.
In any event, this, because its Alan Cox's machine, may well be the most famous blowup yet.
I don't know what type of battery is in my HP, but its been very well behaved so far. That knocking sound? Thats me, knocking on the wood of the tabletop here.
--
Cheers, Gene
Hmm, yes, quite like the Exploding Nokia batteries, indistinguishable from genuine Nokia batteries (according to Nokia), but fake batteries nonetheless (according to Nokia again).
Here's my thoughts: Nokia bought a batch of faulty batteries bud didn't want to admit it. Therefore they said the batteries weren't theirs, even though they coulod not make the distinction.
The real reason you should be buying laptop batteries directly from the manufacturer (or in this case, the vendor: Apple, Dell or IBM) and not a reseller, is that the Li-ion batteries start degrading as soon as they're manufactured due to stresses in the crystal matrix. It does not matter much, therefore, how the batteries are used, for they will only last up to three years before cells will break. Thus, you want the batteries as fresh from the factory as possible, which is why you buy them from the vendor and not a reseller, because the turnover speed at the vendor is greater.
Explosions are quite common to high-capacity batteries. It's the energy, you see.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
If a battery is defective and may explode, how long would it take ? For example, suppose you buy one replacement lithium battery nowadays; and you use it for X months; may you say "I have used it for X months, it did not explode, so it is not defective" ? Or, otherwise, is it a defect that may show up in a random moment in the future? Does anyone here at /. know?