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Dell Laptops Have Shocking New Problem
dapsychous writes "A friend of one of my coworkers has noticed a problem in Dell notebook computers (also covered in this engadget article about a problem that has been popping up lately in Dell 17" notebook computers). It seems that these computers are putting out between 19 and 139 (65 according to article, 139 according to him) volts of AC power as measured from any chassis screw vs. earth ground. This has led to several problems including fried ram, blown video circuits, and a stout zap on his left hand.
According to him, Dell has tried to keep him quiet about the problem and has even gone so far as to have him banned from a few websites, and threatened him with legal action if he tells people about the problem."
I'm running an E1705 (manufactured in May of last year) and I'm not seeing this. Maybe his unit just sucks at grounding. (They're called manufacturing defects for a reason, and last I checked, they're covered by warranty and by law.)
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
I'm on one of those right now. i will be calling Dell ASAP to see if I am affected.
*sigh*, Is there not a company we can trust anymore?
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
...it doesn't get much more reliable than that!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
shock...
I guess this means we shouldn't urinate on the third screw then, eh?
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
if a power supply doesn't do it, pop out the drive and put in a new chassis.
is Dell that bad at support nowadays? or is it just another "call me Bob" who has no clue who he's working for this month overseas and doesn't care?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Dell's new marketing campaign should be: Dell: our computers are elecrifying!
The original generic sig.
Okay, not really, but shouldn't happen in the UK. According to the article:
"The latest word is that VG's own problems were solved by springing for a three-pronged grounded power adapter"
You can't get a non-earthed plug in the UK, the earth pin is physically required to open the plug socket. This can be a dummy pin, but you're only able to do that if the unit itself is double-insulated.
Sounds like someone broke their labtop and is pissed that Dell won't replace it for free.
Why are individual gripes making it to /.? What is the statistical significance of this observation?
/.
A single manufacuring defect (if that is the problem) isn't worthy of
Also, did the "friend" modify the laptop at all? Perhaps disassemble it or otherwise "improve" it?
We've all gotten a lemon at one time or the other.
Stop griping... get a life.
The articles are rather light on details, but I'm wondering if some of these people are using their laptops on a couch and sliding a bit when they sit down? I've had an Inspiron 6000 for a bit over a year now and I've learned in the winter to be careful to set it aside when I'm getting on or off of the couch, lest the static electricity give me a nice zap.
The fact that he's measuring AC (which is very surprising since the laptops don't have any ready access to AC outside of the power brick AFAIK) make it less likely though.
I read the internet for the articles.
My Macbook has the same problem: whenever it pulls in a lot of current, I get an electrical shock when touching the head of one of the screws. I'm not alone with this problem, there are several threads on the Mac support forums about this, e.g. this one. Of course there's no official statement from Apple :-(
i will be calling Dell ASAP to see if I am affected.
Um, and why would you expect them to give you a straight answer? They'll probably just play dumb and say they've never heard of the problem. (Which will probably be true, at least for the drone you'll be talking to.)
Get out a voltmeter and test it; that would seem to be the easiest solution, and less likely to lie to your face than some Customer Service rep. Probably faster, too.
Until a problem like this becomes terribly public -- and by this I mean more public than just being covered on some technology websites -- I suspect Dell will deny it, except in cases where people absolutely insist that they have a problem, and demand a replacement. In those cases, they'll get a replacement machine just to shut them up.
So I'd just get out the old multimeter, measure the AC voltage from one of the chassis screws to the nearest good ground, and if it's more than a few millivolts, call Dell and tell (not ask) them that you need a replacement unit.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Let the corny puns begin!
Thank goodness I resisted buying a Dell!
This guy is measuring a voltage that is higher than our main voltage by twenty volts. Ten volts is plausible but twenty????
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
For a while, I thought I had a similar problem with both my new Dell laptop, and an old dumpster-diver I had before that. I was getting shocked occasionally when I touched the machines. I initially blamed it on poorly grounded wiring in my house (a rental), until I realized that the problem was electro-static discharge build up from sitting on my Durapella couch.
I worked it out recently when cold winter temperatures drove the humidity way down. Whenever I got up from the couch I would feel the charge build up, then I would inadvertently discharge myself of a light switch, a metal corner post in the drywall, or worse, on some home electronics. After I accidentally blew out the panel of buttons on a DVD player, I did some experiments. By rubbing my hand on the couch cushions for a few seconds, then using a piece of metal held in my hand (less painful that way) to discharge myself to ground, I found I could jump a spark 2 cm or more. Sometimes, I can get multiple sparks on one charge.
It's kind of cool, if you know to expect it. And, the remote still works for the DVD player...
--WH--
About 5 years ago, I was doing IT work, and had to support a bunch of Dell laptops my employed had purchased prior to my starting there. the one in question was an Inspiron, don't remember the model number, but it was probably a P3-800 or so.
Anyway, the user was complaining about power issues with the laptop - things like it sudenly shutting down, starting up by itself and running the battery down, etc. Then out of the blue, she said, "and it's shocked me a couple of times." Like that's expected behavior.
I was somewhat skeptical about this, and figured it was a static problem or something unrelated but found out the harsh truth while I was on the support call with Dell. They had me do the usual bonehead stuff like do a hard reset, update the BIOS, remove/replace the battery, etc. I was typing on it and got zapped on the thumb with a serious shock. That's when I noticed the little scorch mark next to the right trackpad button. Looking down through the gap between the button and the case, I could see a little bit of metal from whatever was underneath. Enough charge was building up in there to arc to my hand, which can't be good.
The Dell support guy heard me yelp when I got shocked and asked me if everything was OK. I told him I just got a nasty shock from the laptop and he said, "can you hold for a minute please?"
I waited for about 2 minutes, and then some other guy came on the phone and said that they were sending out a replacement overnight and that I should return the other one right away. The replacement was a top-of-the-line Inspiron for the time, quite a step up from the one that zapped me. I figured it was a pretty good response.
So I issued the user a new Thinkpad from our closet and kept the nice Dell for myself. It worked out for everybody.
On an older Inspiron 8600 laptop. I contacted Dell Warranty Support and my laptop was replaced with a newer E1505 core duo model within a week.
Normally I would have been happy, but the new system had inferior graphics and disk drive, and was incompatable with the upgraded RAM in the old system. Dell would not reconcile the issues, and just had their tech support deny my claims.
"Dell has tried to keep him quiet about the problem and has even gone so far as to have him banned from a few websites, and threatened him with legal action if he tells people about the problem."
On what grounds would this be a valid case? Once you sell something to someone that they own (not license), you cannot tell them what they can and cannot do with it so long as you do not cross any other lines and violate someone's privacy (which is why I suppose selling stuff you bought at auction from a storage company is illegal -- although I think most of what those guys did was OK, and the judge overreached). So this guy has every right to say "My computer shocks me, here's what kind of machine it is" because it's not slander, it's the truth.
Seems to me like this guy can file under anti-SLAPP rules, can't he? This company is trying to shut up someone who is exposing their mistakes -- and yes, it is a valid complaint (why wasn't he given a grounded power supply when it is known that failing to ground electronic devices can shock users?) and yes he has the right to be publicly heard if he wishes to. No one has the right to not be offended by what he has to say.
i am a soviet space shuttle
How does static electricity get you an AC current?
But this guy says he measured his voltage with the multimeter on AC. Static electricity is the buildup of charge on something capacitive (like you and me) and would be measured as DC. That is, if you could measure it at all, since we make pretty bad capacitors and any ordinary multimeter would quickly drain the charge away.
I am not a crackpot.
The LCD backlight - typically runs somewhere in the region of 150V ac. There will be an inverter in the laptop to produce this voltage.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I know my house was built a long long time ago (1951) and the upstairs, while someone put in grounded outlets, it doesn't physically have the ground hooked up - due to the wiring used at the time of it being built.
That's an electrical code violation. If you have to have a 3-prong outlet on a 2-wire circuit, you must use a GFCI outlet, which gives you electric shock protection. That's allowed by the US National Electrical Code. The outlet plate should then be marked "Isolated Ground". This warns people that plugging in a computer there may have problems, because it can't dump static and noise into protective ground as usual.
If you're going to wire up power, read a manual on how to do it. It's not rocket science, but there are very specific rules and screwing up is dangerous.
He needs to have a good ground. He's using the metal case of another PC as ground so he might just as well be measuring the voltage off the PC case.
One thing I forgot to point out. I have a 15 inch Dell, and I get shocked. So the issue is not just with the 17 inch model.
I'm sorry to contradict you but most laptop power supplies are not doubly insulated because the laptop itself is not doubly insulated and you really need to have it grounded in case a fault in the power supply transformer leads mains voltage to the laptop's ground.
If you disconnect the ground or your wiring doesn't have the ground, the EMI filter capacitors will bring mains voltage (albeit with a fairly big impedance) on the laptop's ground. It is not dangerous, but it may create some problem when the laptop is connected to other devices.
The guy should simply ground his laptop power supply.
The article is vague. It's not even clear if the problem occurs when the laptop is not plugged into the charger. The power supply for some backlights can produce over 100v, so there is a potential shock source even on battery power.
If the problem is related to the charger power supply, that's a clear safety hazard. Check for a UL logo, and go to the UL web site to check on whether the power supply actually has approval. If the power supply is made in China, it must have a hologram UL sticker with the UL approval number. There are power supplies out there with forged UL approvals, and UL is trying to crack down. (Those are the power supplies that fail in power supply tests on PC websites. UL tests them loaded up to their rated value and runs them for hours at full load, so the UL logo means it really can deliver whatever power it's supposed to deliver.)
Michael Dell doesn't fuck around does he!!!!
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
I just measured 36.8VAC @ 60Hz between a chassis screw and plug ground on a Dell Inspiron 15" Latitude D820. Perhaps I'll put it on the scope after lunch. I wonder if it will grill my sandwich?
Pretty easily, when it's full of voltage converters, and a high-voltage inverter to run the LCD backlight,
I just checked all the Dell laptops our company owns, about 10 of them (E1505 and E1705 models). All of them are producing around 3-5 Volts of AC off the screws. In fact the one producing the highest voltage is currently on a service call as the system has stopped working.
I am currently in contact with Dell about this issue and I am being informed they are letting the engineers know of the issue and hope to have a resolution soon.
The funniest thing I have read regarding this was a post in notebookforums from aindfan:
"I took my E1705 up to the Senior Design EE lab here. The two seniors that were there glanced over at my oscilloscope and realized what was going on, most likely assuming that I did not ground properly. When we took it over to the new, more advanced scope, the measurements reported were of a 60Hz periodic function with a peak-to-peak voltage of ~150V.
Being curious EE's, the next natural step that the seniors suggested was to see if we could pull any current out of the screws. A few moments later, we had a circuit with a laptop screw connecting to an LED in series with a 1K Ohm resistor connected to the ground node of a power supply (connected directly to the ground of a wall socket). I am happy to report that the LED turned on and there was a measured current of about 1.4 (mille or micro, I forget which) Amps flowing from the screw to the resistor.
Remember, folks, there will never be current flowing out of the laptop without a load attached to the screws. So don't hook up any 1 Ohm resistors if this is happening to your laptop, you might fry a few things (due to the large current, remember V=IR).
I'm opening up a Dell chat now to see about getting this resolved.
Thanks for starting this thread ViriiGuy. It was quite interesting to play around with the testing for this.
EDIT: When I asked the dell chat support tech if she could send a 3 pronged power adapter (after I explained the issue), she replied "I cannot do that.""
Good stuff.
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" -Confucius
But I think that Slashdot editors should conduct themselves in a more professional manner. How else can we expect you to discharge your duties effectively, and eliminate the audience's natural resistance?
Now let's get back to the current topic.
That's how three of my family members died!
You stroke a cat, then pick it up by the tail and swing it around over your head at 3600 RPM (3000 RPM in Europe).
Have gnu, will travel.
That is true, and LCD Display is powered by a high-voltage source, high voltage being around 30vDC, NOT A/C!! I know my electronics b/c I have spent pretty much my entire life dealing with them in ways most people are afraid of. I have always carried a multimeter in my back pocket, and yes, high voltage for DC circuits in electronics, such as computers, is around 30v DC and any more than that would cause severe damage to the electronic circuits that drive the devices. Not to mention that I am not wrong, NOR am I "plain dumb" such as yourself. Even if it were to be running on ANY form of high-voltage circuit, the current in the circuit would be so minimal that it wouldn't do anything more that give you a little "buzz."
I didn't RTFA, but in countries like Switzerland, we have regular wiretestings. You're obligated to do them, if you don't do them, you will get disconnected from the Grid.
Now if you hook a typical $4.99 digital voltmeter from Harbor Freight, the input impedance of the voltmeter, combined with these capacitors, will indicate anything from zero to 377 volts.
And if you rub your cat, the voltage could go much higher!
As you bright folks out there may be guessing, it's not the voltage so much that is the problem, it's the current. And the current is miniscule, microamps.
So no conspiracy here, move along, etc....
The quote from the article is:
Clones are people two.
"I trust many big companies because they provide quality products and never tried to screw me, and I trust even more small companies, and if you think about it, I'm sure you do too."
Hmmm. I trust many companies too, for the same reason. If they've given me no reason to not trust them, and have taken steps to earn my trust, I tend to
How is the little restaurant down the street disposing of it's waste? Are they recycling, re-using and reducing to the fullest extent? Do they pay their employees shit wages and leave it to the customer to make up the difference with tips?
How about that newspaper vendor you stop at on your way to work?
Does he beat his wife? Cheat on his taxes? Where does the owner stand on abortion?
Do you look in to his character before plunking down that fifty cents down on a newspaper?
If not, why not? I guess you didn't catch the part in my comment about the hair cut, or the pub or restaurant. Or do you go to Wallmart for a haircut? (I don't know. Maybe you do.)
I could have named local establishments that I do business with, but the parent poster has likely never heard of them. Instead, I named companies he might have heard of and provided links to articles describing why I think they deserve my business.
Does your local farmer's market pay their employees good living wages, offer health care and other benefits and only sell products produced in accordance with your high moral standards? Can you really vouch for every jar of jam, every piece of fruit? What makes you have to resort to name calling?
More importantly, should the fact that I think you're an asshole have a bearing on whether or not I buy a pack of gum from you?
I don't care why you're posting AC
The problem is that even if the current is miniscule, humans can feel as little as 1 mA. The LED lighting incident commented on earlier shows that the current is at least 1 mA, if not more.
The issue is that a laptop shouldn't be leaking any current. None. A circuit designed as you suggested is a potential lawsuit - if a capacitor shorts, the user gets full line current - not a very good idea. A person can be electrocuted well before a circuit protection device trips.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I just had my video card replaced under warranty by Dell after it started to have problems @ 8 months old. The biggest issues I have with Dell is the over 2 hour tech support phone call, to tell them that it was a video card issue, not a windows driver issue when the text displayed in BIOS is garbled. It was amazing the things the tech support guy wanted me to try to figure out if it was the display or the graphics card, like wanting me to go find a magnet so I can wave it over the keyboard... I had to keep fighting the "reload windows" path by telling them that the graphics hardware was bad when their BIOS logo on boot is corrupted, and that fixing anything in windows, Linux, BIOS or anything on a CD would not help. Half of the call was strange questions injected during the debuggin session about "how" I use my laptop trying to figure out if I abuse it. Its basically a gaming desktop for me so it looks brand new and has sat on the desk never handled for months. Truly amazing (and frustrating).
Many countries require by law that an ungrounded metal chassis has a "fake ground" which is made by connecting the chassis to both phase and null through capacitors. This way you will get an electric potential of the chassis which is half the phase voltage.
The article is a bit barren, but the comments have some gems. Like this.
I have a dell 6400 with the better display and YES i do get little shocks every other time i touch it. I thought its ok, but i guess its not...should i call dell and address this problem?
I mean, holy f'ing 5h1t! How can anyone possible have to ask someone else that question.. Errr, Duhhh... My laptop is shocking me Bob... Should I call support?
I'm just astounded.
BBH
Of course they can fail. Solder joints can come loose, the capacitors themselves could have a undetected defect that becomes more apparent over time. As for factory testing, in a perfect would we could be sure that every one of the millions of units sold had every component that should be tested checked out properly, but the facts of life say that sometimes this doesn't happen, either due to accident, equipment issues (faulty testing/manufacturing equipment), human error if applicable, and even due to *gasp* cost cutting (like let's test every 1 of 3 and call the rest good).
There is no absolute, and no "doesn't fail, ever."
I'd like to submit Logitech to the list!
I purchased one of their MX1000 laser mice when it was a brand new item, and while it was excellent - my 4 year old dropped it on the floor one too many times. The center rocker button surrounding the scroll wheel started sticking occasionally, causing things to scroll, out of control, in web browsers, MS Word, etc.
Seeing it was under Logitech's warranty, I figured it couldn't hurt to give them a call - to see if they might be able to sell me a used/refurbished replacement mouse inexpensively or something, given the circumstances.
Instead, the sales rep. looked up its serial number to confirm it was under warranty, and simply said "A brand new replacement is on its way." I asked if they needed the old mouse back, and I was told "No. You may as well keep it to have a spare charging base or something." Within a week, a new mouse was at my doorstep, in the retail packaging!
You're right; NEC article 406 says that the correct marking is "No Equipment Ground" in that situation.
I noticed this problem on my E1705 while I was in Israel recently. For days I experienced occasional stabs of pain in my left forearm whenever I had it pressed against the front of the laptop. I kept looking for something sharp or something that could have been grabbing the hairs on my arm but eventually I noticed a couple of tiny spots of bare metal on the housing where the paint had worn off. Immediately I suspected live voltage and sure enough when I put a voltmeter to it I could measure 30-40 VDC (never thought to measure AC) at the bare spot. And I noticed it would slowly charge up after a discharge.
However, the problem went away once I came home to the U.S. and I assumed it was related to the 220V service in Israel. Although this doesn't make much sense since the DC power supply should be supplying the same voltage to the laptop in either case.
I am the inventor of the hilarious refrigerator alarm.
In a former life, I was a site hardware support engineer for a petroleum company. They had laptops that were used on Oil Drilling Platforms. (Steel, everything in sight earthed really well.) ;-)
I was handed a complaint that someone was shocked on one of these PCs. And, on testing, there was a potential of 75-150 volts between some of the exposed screws and earth. BUT, and this is the important point, the current was in the milli- to micro- ampere range. So, it meant that the electricity was perceptible, but not dangerous since the current involved was below the accepted threshold for danger to humans.
On the other hand, a spark, any spark, on an oil rig is not a good thing. The final result was that the PCs continued to be used in the office, but were banned from the oil rigs.
The above comments with respect to the current may not be the same as the situation reported in the original article, but I'd be curious to know what the measured current actually is.
When I measured current on the machines I tested, I started with the meter in it's highest possible current setting and gradually worked downwards to more sensitive scales to make sure I didn't let the "smoke" out of the meter. But if you're not sure about the method, don't try this at home kids.
It's true that floating a cheap DMM's leads in the air (or even a very good DMM's) will show all sorts of spurious voltages, and that the "AC" voltage is not true RMS unless the meter says true RMS on the package... but users feeling a definite tingle through their skin indicates to me a problem, as does the demonstration (assuming it's true!) of pulling a milliamp over 1k off the "floating" case.
(Yes, IAAEE, and yes, one of my current [no pun intended] projects involves developing a device to zap humans - we EEs are our own most handy test subjects. Somewhat off the topic, the Big Boyz of the human-zapping industry set their 'danger zone' at around 10mA, give or take a little depending on pulsewidth, etc. Once you pierce the skin, human body resistance drops to only a couple Kohms...)
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
WTF? As one comment already explained, the problem only occurs when ungrounded power adapters are used. Three-pronged plug grounded ones remove this problem. So clearly it's not the issue of the EMI filter you described. As another post explained, the issue is capacitive coupling between the primary and secondary windings in the switching transformer. I am sorry that your misinforming post got moderated highly.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."