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Dell Laptops Still Exploding

Posted by Zonk on from the free-light-show dept.

bl8n8r writes "It 'looked like fireworks, which would have been cool had it not been in my house.' said Doug Brown of Columbus, Ohio. Brown, a Network Administrator, called 911 last week when the Dell 9200 laptop burst into flames in his house. Emergency response units included two pumpers, a ladder truck, a bamalance, the HAZMAT unit, and a battalion chief. When Doug phoned Dell to inquire about liability, he was asked if he had insurance. It's not clear if Doug's laptop is one of the earlier models recalled by Dell; a Macbook is cited in the article for allegedly burning down a house in Australia as well as another instance of a suspect Dell laptop burning out a pickup truck in Nevada. If the burning battery issues are going to continue to be a problem, who's going to be responsible for losses? Insurance companies, Laptop makers, Battery vendors, and consumer negligence could presumably be cited in all cases."

4 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Insurance by Gandalf_the_Beardy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is what insurance is for though - the unexpected. Surely general household cover would be sufficient? As a matter of interest is it common to bill the houseowner for the fire departments response?

  2. Fragmented Drives Contributing to the Overheat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A client of mine asked me to fix his Dell laptop, which was overheating and shutting down to fix the problem. This was before the exploding batteries were in the news.

    First of all DO NOT turn off the automatic shut down of the laptop when the processor reaches a certain temperature to fix this problem.

    Deleting enough off the drive to defragment it fixed the issue and it stopped overheating. First I had to put the laptop on a metal barbeque frame so it would be cool enough and stay on long enough to defragment it.

    Kind of a scary task for your boss to give you now that I think about it... but this was months before it was on the news. I don't know if this is the same issue exactly but I wanted to bring it up.

  3. You're joking, of course, but ... by schnipschnap · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Please take a look at this link: http://apcmag.com/3912/qantas_ban_may_extend_to_ma c_laptops

  4. Re:Let's be CLEAR on this by Headcase88 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Compounding this, most /. editors and readers hate Sony (with good reason), so any time they fuck up in any department (except maybe games), you can expect to see it on the front page.

    --
    "When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"