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HP & Dell Face Lawsuits From Exploding Hardware
An anonymous reader writes "Dell and Hewlett-Packard are both facing lawsuits over catastrophic equipment failures that lead to fires and injuries last year. 'In one case, a North Dakota auto lube shop owner claims that a Dell monitor he purchased caught fire and burned down his business ... meanwhile, an Arkansas man has sued HP, claiming that an HP Compaq Presario PC he purchased from Wal-Mart burst into flames, causing a blaze that destroyed his house and seriously injured his daughter.'"
I'm a Mac.
And I'm a Oh my God, I'm burning!
Chip vendors should disable the HCF opcode unless either the GURU or IDIOT jumper is set.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Still, I assume many average users really don't think a computer is going to catch fire...if the PCs are pre-built, they should include some sort of failsafe.
It's my understanding that walmart habitually insists on lower prices from its suppliers than they provide to others--inducing a corresponding reduction in quality of the product at times, e.g. using plastic rather than metal gears in power tools and the like. I'd not be surprised if HP cut corners for the 'Walmart edition' of its computers.
That "made specially for walmart" logo on the box is more a warning than an endorsement in my mind.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
I hate it when my computer sues me!
And a properly-made power supply should never burst into flames. Normally, a power supply has a fuse in it that will blow to prevent the circuitry in the PSU from becoming overloaded. Sounds like there is a serious product liability issue with the PSU in the Presario in question.
My blog
HP & Dell Seek Patent For Exploding Hardware
In our office, we've had two monitors burn - one just with smoke pouring out of it, and one with nice flames coming out the top. They were both old, and it looks like dust inside was the culprit. Unplugging the monitors in both cases pretty much stopped the fire. I'm actually surprised this doesn't happen more often.
This is kind of like sueing a car company for being seriously injured when you crashed into the pole.
No, it's like suing Ford when your ignition system catches fire and burns your house down while parked in your garage. In fact, this happened to Ford; a design defect in the ignition actually did burn some houses down, and Ford settled without a suit and recalled the rest of the product; going to trial when you are at fault is stupid. And if your merchandise catches fire without its owner doing anything stupid, YOU are at fault.
Any high electric-use device is "likely" to cause an electrical fire.
Only if it is poorly designed and/or built. They've been doing electrical engineering for over a hundred years and there is no excuse for ANY appliance to catch fire.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
You ever had a monitor with a bad flyback transformer? The sparks that some of those things make are insane. I'd easily believe that one could start a fire if you had something highly flammable located near your monitor.
This guy's the limit!
They do. That was the "self destruct" failsafe.
morcego
I have a friend who had a monitor catch fire. In his words: "There was a pop, a cloud of smoke, and a little flame inside my monitor last night." It was not an old monitor either.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
What has me scratching my head is the recent bankrupcy "reform" that one of my Senators voted for (Obama, Senate campaign bankrolled by bankers) and how the (corporate owned) media has everyone thinking that awful law is a good thing.
All my life (I'm 55) if you declared bankrupcy you got to keep your primary residence and one automobile. Now they can leave you homeless and without transportation, and people think this is a GOOD thing.
The corporate owned media has us thinking that bankrupcy is primarily caused by bad financial decisions, but personal bankrupcy is almost always caused by divorce, job loss, or medical bills, none of which can be controlled by the person whose bankrupcy is caused by them.
In the US people don't like safety nets, it appears. Score one more for the corporations and the media and government they control.
The same with lawsuits. Take the infamous McDonald's suit. "Oh a lady sued McDonald's for spilled coffee". What the corporate-owned media doesn't stress (or even mention) that the coffee was boiling hot (not drinkable) and all the woman wanted was the medical bills for her THIRD DEGREE BURNS paid. The McClown's McLawyers refused to settle. I don't know about anybody else but if I have to sue you because you're an evil bastard who won't face up to your responsibilities, I'm going to take everything I can get!
If a monitor you sell me burns my house down it's not likely to be me that sues. More likely it will be my insurance company that does the suing.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The problem is almost exclusively the power supplies.
:). Was working fine for a long time. All voltages were fine. Then one day it just exploded in flames. Now, this PS was not in a PC at the time, so maybe not worthy of "burning the house down" scenario as it was only plugged in when someone was around.
Over the last few years, I had 5 power supplies fail, 2 of them with a giant bang. Heck, I'm sure that they would result in the place being burned to the ground if it wasn't for me pulling the cord out of the wall. The culprit in both cases was a cheap-ass power supply that came with the case of those $50 deals.
Scenario one. The box (P3-450) was powered off. Was changing the network card though I noticed the power supply was suspiciously warm even though it was off. When I plugged the box back in (didn't had time to turn it on), caps popped in the PS with 3 large bangs and 12V rail became 120V AC rail. Yanked the cord out of the wall within about 2 seconds but the damage was done. Everything connected to 12V was fried. Sound gone. CD/HD fried (CD drive opened spontaneously like in those horror movies and the CD that was in it flew out, hit the wall and shattered!). The mobo/CPU/ram survived as only the 12V rail was affected. Later, I plugged in the PS on the workbench and within 2 seconds there was a fire inside the power supply. I didn't wait longer to see what would happen, but I can image that the place would burn down if that PS popped in the middle of the night.
Scenario two. A different power supply. This was an old ATX power supply I was using for a different purpose - powering some equipment 5V equipment on stand-by power rail (yes, less power than it was rated for at that rail
The last 3 cases are power supplies that died or were about to die. One of a Antec 300W PS - that one worked fine then just stopped working. Another was an HP propriatory PS - working fine then not. Died the Right Way. And the third one was an unnamed PS that just stopped giving right voltages. The 12V went down to 9V over one year and system stability was gone.
So, at least 1 in 5 cases so far would result in "house burn down" scenario. Now, I do not keep any but the best PS boxes (Enermax) anywhere where a fire would destroy they house. The cheap ones are relegated to the concrete basement.
There is NO OTHER component of any electronic device but the power supply that can destroy your house. And yes, a monitor also has a power supply, though a bit safer than the PC box.
Of course, there is no 100% fire proof anything so the only way is to mitigate the problem, and also mitigate the energy waste problem at the same time. Unplug your devices when you are not using them. Unplug the TV/DVD/computer when you are not around. If you need the box up 24/7 (eg. server running your home phone system, bt, etc.), put that box in the basement on a concrete floor without flammables around it. For the rest, keep it unplugged when not using - surge protected works great here. This may save your house, and maybe $100+ in wasted "stand-by" power per year.
...and the are filth-captial-E! I'm sure the thick layer of dust mixed with oily residue inside the monitor had NOTHING to do with this.
I'm willing to be the other one is similar... cat or dog hair, maybe?
Anyone know if the equipment in question has been tested by Underwriters Laboratories or the equivalent Canadian/European counterparts?
I'm wondering if the problem is strictly a design flaw or a manufacturing quality issue (though I would suspect a combination of both). If it's the primarily the former, then I would have to say that the testing firms that put their logo on the case just lost some credibility.
But then again, I can't say that I know anyone that specifically looks for the UL/CE/CSA logo on the box before they purchase something that they plug into their wall nowadays.
A girl i know brought a 19inch HP LCD over to my dorm room, saying "FIXIT!!!" No backlight, but the thing still had a picture, and it smelled like sulfur. "Erin, what happened when it quit" "it filled my room with black smoke" "oh...." *unplugs* so i popped it open, The transistor that does the DC to AC conversion in the back light inverter had exploded. I mean, really, like took out the Cap next to it, and cracked the PCB. The thing was 9mo old, with a 6 month warranty. BTW, it was nice and clean inside, no dust at all. She took good care of it. Is that even legal? i know for cars thats called a lemon if it lasts less then a year, and you get a new car, FREE.
Its possible that these incidents are statistically insignificant given the number of products sold that don't explode. Or there would be new rules proposed in the codes to address these problems. These folks just live for writing new rules. In fact, there are some pretty strict rules covering electrical installations in hazardous locations like gas stations. Its just that no construction code can keep someone from running an extension cord and plugging in a PC around gas fumes.
Have gnu, will travel.
Fortunately, these fires self-extinguish very quickly when you disconnect the power - if your PC (or whatever random piece of tech) starts smoking / burning, pull the plug. These failures are only really dangerous in unattended machines - then this failure can and does result in a fire.
Those little capacitors are relatively expensive, and manufacturers who are doing everything they can to shave costs discover they can replace the low-ESR computer grade electrolytics with cheap aluminum electrolytics - and then take it another step by sourcing the cheapest cheap caps they can buy. They manufactures know that this choice will result in a much shorter life for the equipment but those failures will occur after the warranty has expired so it's OK with them.
Remember this next time you buy yet another power supply for your computer. It could have lasted 10 or more years, but the manufacturer saved a couple of bucks on the components so it died after a year or two. A fire caused by these cheap parts is actually fairly rare - less than one in a thousand machines (probably much less).
The way to eliminate the majority of these fires? The manufacturers should spend the money it takes to use the right components - capacitors designed and rated for high temperature / switch-mode operation. That would also make power supplies last the life of the machine, slightly reduce power consumption, etc. But as long as consumers insist on the lowest price for products the manufactures will continue to give them what they are asking for.
Imagine a shelf at the computer parts store: there's two different 400 watt PC power supplies for sale. One sells for $40 and the one next to it speaks of high quality parts and long lifetime and sells for $60. Which one do you think most consumers would buy?