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Toxic Fumes From Mac Pros?
Fanboi Killa writes "Apple is investigating damning claims, published in a leading French newspaper, that its computers emit a toxic odor containing chemicals including the cancer-causing benzene. Apple has not denied the accusations. Its spokesman, Bill Evans, told Macworld the company had not found any evidence to support the claim but Apple would continue to investigate. Posts on Apple's own discussion boards suggest the Mac maker knew about potentially toxic odors being linked to its computers as early as December last year."
It's just the smell of smug.
If there's any truth to it, then I'm fairly sure this only applies to MacPros (see http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2319).
The article (and 'internets' hype) cleary state the problematic machines to be the Mac Pro (manufactured pre 2008)
blaah !
...there was no Reality Distortion Field - everybody was just getting high.
Saying "Apple has not denied the allegations" is sensationalistic, and doesn't belong in the summary. They "found no evidence", which, logically, is as strong a denial as can possibly be made.
I thought we'd known that Apples give off ethylene forever. What's one more gas?
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
I'm sorry but... How can an odor be toxic? Toxic fumes OK I can parse that but an odor? Next you'll be peddling aromatherapy. Keep science clean please.
Source of the reality distortion field revealed!
Further studies show that the fumes also cause a false sense of self worth and belonging as well as an elitist attitude.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
Mac PROS. I didn't see anything about MacBOOKS... Wow, the flurry of misinformation regarding Apple products the past few days is staggering!
Am I the only one that noticed that in the article, the screen of the machine is showing a Vista interface?
The smell has been variously described as "new car smell", "musty", "rotting carpet" and even cannabis.
So, computer geeks smelled something musty, rotting, or something similar to pot. Uh, that's nothing new. They probably just need to clean up their rooms and smoke outside.
So because some Frenchman smelled something funny, now Apple has to defend against "toxic fumes" ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Read the article -- the whole thing is sensational.
Even if the Greenpeace lab did detect chemicals with known health risks you still need to know the concentrations.
You can get a all sorts of poisonous fumes coming off of anything with silicon caulk -- like aquariums -- especially when they get warm. Good stuff like toluene and ethylbenzene -- just not in concentrations that can actually harm you.
I'm NOT trying to claim there is no problem. I'm just saying that there is nothing from the article to support that there IS a problem either -- just some anecdotes and a bit of scientifically illiterate journalism.
With the strong smells coming off some machines, it is worth running a few tests to make sure that whatever is being emitted is not coming off at dangerous concentrations. In the meantime, though, not much to see here.
Life is short: void the warranty.
Wow, what a discovery...
Plastic is amongst the "dirtiest" compounds in manufacturing. They commonly contain plasticisers, colorants, residual monomers, oligomers and solvents, all of whom can, and most likely will evaporate. Depending on the choice of plastic, this is much, little, odourless or smelly.
It looks like only the mention of Apple Mac these days will get your news posted..
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
Would the author of the summary prefer if Apple denied the allegations without investigating the matter?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Guess that one was misleading.
""My entire room smells bad and I have had to resort to a few air fresheners just to be able to work on it," one report read."
"I recently have had a bird die 'mysteriously' which was caged near my MacPro which has had the terrible smell for months. The vet said it was likely he inhaled something toxic!!!"
Both of those "quotes" or "reports" are pulled from the Apple forum. With no follow-up, no real names, and no fact checking. I guess it's good that they did in fact link to the posts... I'm sad to see Slashdot posting this article.
I wonder if there is some particular manufacturing issue with certain mac pros, or are users primed to be unusually sensitive about their experience with expensive hardware? I ask because there doesn't seem to be anything unusual about the mac pro. Aluminum case, not much outgassing there, industry standard drives, RAM, chipset, chips, nothing there that isn't in 10s of millions of boring beige boxes. All the specific components, motherboard, PSU, etc. are presumably sourced from the same OEMs that manufacture for everybody else.
I can imagine that people would be more apt to notice galling details in a machine they paid over 2000 for, but I am hard pressed to believe that the mac pro is actually emitting any chemicals that numerous other machines wouldn't also be. PCB manufacturing isn't all puppies and roses, and everybody's PCBs are manufactured in essentially the same way.
``They "found no evidence", which, logically, is as strong a denial as can possibly be made.``
No, as strong a denial as can possibly be made is "That is incorrect. It is not true. Our products do not emit the fumes referred to."
All "found no evidence" means that where they looked, using their methods, they couldn't find the fumes.
I'm not saying they -didn't- launch a thorough investigation, but there's nothing in particular to indicate that they did, either. Certainly there's people with complaints.. unless they're all making things up, I suspect that their "[continued] investigation" will dig up some particular packaging material or electronics supplier that happened to have a bad batch.
The problem is, actually doing it right-- investigating the rumor with an open mind-- takes time. So they're really in a no-win situation.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It would be irresponsible for Apple to deny the allegations without further looking into it first. Having a knee-jerk 'we didn't do nothing!' reaction would concern me a lot more, because that would indicate at best a lack of concern for safety, and at worst a possible cover-up. At least now we know that they're taking this potential threat seriously, and if evidence is found, corrective action will soon follow.
lol - i noticed that too ... talk about toxic!
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
RTFA. The part about 'not denying the allegations' is part of the original article. It is not something the poster made by himself.
EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
Just about any polymer used in a modern consumer good is going to off-gas chemicals to SOME extent, over time (it's probably even worse with "environmentally friendly" plastics meant to more quickly degrade over time). Singling out Apple is this regard is just petty. I'm sure you could find just as much in any computer made by a French company (not that France is ever going to complain about THAT, though).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Got my new MacBook Pro last week. Aah, that wonderful smell of a pristine laptop ... but it's already going away :- b ... I guess running full tilt all the time burns the good stuff off too quickly.
But seriously, that's a surprise?? I would be shocked if you could find a (new) computer that does *not* give of toxic fumes.
Do your own thing. And overdo it!
I wonder what the ratio is of Mac Pro users that eat Taco Bell regularly is.
There could be a link.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Either one of the journos really doesn't like apple , or more likely they're just a bunch of incompetent idiots. The whole story is a pile of **** anyway because ALL consumer eletronics give off tiny amounts of fumes from the organics in them.
Kinda reminds me of the armpit smelling iBooks. I recently got a iBook G4 which reeked like unwashed male armpit. After googling I found that replacing the keyboard would fix the problem and it did. Apple hasn't officially acknowledged this particular problem.
Is it "fish shaped" ethyl benzene perhaps? If so I need some for a cake garnish.
I was in the Apple store when I was in Paris recently, and I let an SBD rip.
Also, having proper ventilation in offices can prevent headaches and the likes... sounds like he didn't have any.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
tagged for bad title because it made me worry about my macbook pro, when the article never mentions macBOOKs, only mac PROs specifically...
Apple even replaced the power supply and subsequently the entire mac because of "smell". I call that a little service.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
1. Elitism. We bought the Mercedes-Benz of glamour computing, so we're hipper than you.
2. Paranoia. We are the minority of computer buyers, and we spend a lot of money, so the rest of you are in conspiracy to hate us.
3. Effetism. We are supposed to be the nice, Progressive, hip and liberal kids, so we can't take a strong stance on anything but hating PCs.
4. Emo. We are from the enlightened future, where everything is how you want it to be, where a cute interface is more important than function.
5. Cognitive dissonance. I paid twice what I should have for this thing, I can't upgrade it, and it has big problems, BUT it has a nice shiny interface. Therefore, it must be better in some mythical way, because I can't admit I'm basically a computer user like everyone else.
6. AIDS. Unproven.
I see the "Apple psychology" as being damaging to computing, specifically open source.
The Apple psychology rewards conspicuous consumption and ideological dogma. It does not reward what open source gives, which is pragmatic function.
The more people use Macs, the more they drift away from reality. I know this post will probably be modded "Troll, -1" but after 23 years of observing Macintosh users, and 11 years of being one, this is why I stay clear away from Apple products: The Smug(tm) wags the dog of the user's psychology.
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
It is greenpeace....why is this news. They are just a bunch of hippie-tree huggers pushing their agenda much like PETA. I would not believe anything these people say...even if they said the sky was blue i would get 2 independent studies done and still would not trust what GP was saying. /stupid lying hippies
. I love the sound of burning women and screaming rubber....
A nice can of Woof-O should do the trick. You can get the girl out of the way with a handful of gauze and a bottle of chloroform.
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I hate printers.
The bad smell only occurs when using Vista on a Mac. OS X produces the stench of rainbows, roses and women farts.
That's all. Soap-box science is fond of the "X contains Y, Y causes Z!" without considering the exposure, which is the absolute be-all and end-all of toxicology. As a rule of thumb, the air around you contains non-zero amounts of anything you claim to mention. Your computer mouse could quite possibly have a whole molecule of deadly hydrogen fluoride on it. This will not kill you.
100 spin points to Greenpeace for changing VOC from "volatile organic compound" to "volatile organic contaminant", by the way. It's nice to know that I can order in 99% pure bottles of "contaminant" from Sigma, or indeed that my air freshener is busily filling my surroundings with "contaminants".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I wonder if the problems I recently had with two cheap electronic devices were related. I had a small portable Emerson CD/Tape/Radio device which emitted a nasty smell. I would say it was a 'chemical' type smell but almost like it had an organic component to it maybe like stale BO. Sometimes I thought it was maybe an almond like smell? Anyway, once I figured out that was it, I discarded it. It had worked for maybe a year before doing that.
Then maybe a year later, last month, my cheap second TV started doing the same thing. It was a 27" Sylvania from about 2004. EXACT same smell. Very strange. It had worked for about 4 years before doing it too. No indication of failure except the smell.
Anyway, does anyone think I or anyone else with similar experiences should be concerned if we or especially young children are exposed to these types of chemical emissions from electronics?
Apple goods are infused with narcotic addictive fumes, so you'll KEEP ON BUYING THEM. And you can't complain under the NDA. Because Apple is EVIL.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Sweet Sweet Stylish and Trendy Death, how soft is your grip..... [sigh]
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
It also has nothing to do with macbooks, but mac pros. Thanks for the accuracy again CmdrTaco!
Seeing as how I have both a mid-2007 Macbook and the new early-2008 Mac Pro... I'm somewhat screwed if this is true... :'(
At least I spent all of my time in life on Slashdot, with people that really matter
What did you think that "new computer smell" is? Volatile organic chemicals, including benzene!
Once again we see that by mentioning Apple by name (especially in an environmental story) can magically make a pointless story into front page news...
0 1 - just my two bits
I seem to recall Greenpeace going after Apple in the past as well. Haven't they been trying to slam Apple for not being ecologically friendly for years now? Not saying there isn't a problem, just saying Greenpeace isn't exactly a neutral party. Maybe one of these problem systems should be sent off to a lab that really is neutral and can say for sure whether there's a problem or not.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Apparently one of the complainants thinks too literally: "My entire room smells bad and I have had to resort to a few air fresheners just to be able to work on it." So he doesn't care about the toxic fume in the air, he just doesn't want to smell it. Or he thinks that an air freshener magically deactivates bad chemicals.
i'm thinking iCancer
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
It's just their newest product: The iPhume
Actually, denying that something is true and finding no evidence that something is true are two quite different things.
i was employed in the retail part of Apple for almost a year, and in that time, I had two customers, both with older Mac Pros, one of which almost started a fire, and the other customer had to take his dog to the vet to be checked out and given a breathing treatment. No real explanation why it happened, and we flat out replaced the machine instead of repaired it, as they were far too gone. Closer inspection on the first was that either wires were crossed, or something plain ol' busted and went haywire with the power supply. The 2nd unit we couldn't even get the door open, it was messed up that bad. And we actually put them on the loading dock for a bit, they smelled that awful. None of this surprises me. It *is* however, a different smell than a MacBook / PS overheating. Those are just burning smell. MP is a putrid stench that basically makes your eyes water and your nose hurt.
"But I can't get an ocean that's deep enough for my day..." ~The Frames, "Fitzcarraldo"
... is the only foul smell that permeates from my 8-core Mac Pro.
Hi, I'm a Mac, and I'm a P..... (thud)
I would have loved to see the title say "Toxic Fumes From Mac[Book] Air"
Anyone notice the lcd had a vista desktop? Yes i know macs can run both but I thought it was funny.
Then it must be true. After all, the one who denied it, supplied it.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Apple does say that they cannot find any evidence to support the claim, unlike how the story here portrays the issue. But why would anybody trust anything on /. anymore?
http://www.macworld.com/article/135835/2008/10/macpro_benzene.html
If there's no proof of the claim, then can Apple sue the French "scientist" for damage to their business?
Toxic Fumes from Mac pros? I know the hygiene of professional Mac users is not always daisy fresh, but calling them toxic is a tad insensitive.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Thanks for the Fox News update, subtard. Among the other things Apple hasn't denied is reports that Macs eat children or the claim that the iPhone induces bubonic plague.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
Ozone from electronics comes primarily from high voltage sparking, which usually means CRTs and associated components. (Even then it's not common and may indicate a problem.) LCD displays and computer internals are line voltage or lower and shouldn't be generating ozone.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Not to mention that the tests were run by Greenpeace, and they have absolutely no credibility whatsoever. In conclusion, this is a stupid story written by stupid people and the massive attention it has received in the press just goes to prove that there are a lot of stupid people out there.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Greenpeace only attacks things it wants to love, like whalers, nuclear power and apple computers. The Japanese have small penises as is well known, but of course if the Welsh ever were allowed to whale again they would pry break some of those weak vegetarians in half.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
When Frenchman smells a fart, even a silent one from a computer, the offense is usually intended. The proclamation that the fumes are noxious is just a belly laugh. Maybe I'll try setting the language on my MacBook Pro to French to see if I can trick it into farting at me too.
It looks like they corrected that.
You know, for people who are so unwilling to let us edit or delete our own posts, they sure are willing to make corrections to their stories without noting that there even was one.
From the Slashdot FAQ:
Will you delete my comment?
No. We believe that discussions in Slashdot are like discussions in real life- you can't change what you say, you only can attempt to clarify by saying more. In other words, you can't delete a comment that you've posted, you only can post a reply to yourself and attempt to clarify what you've said.
In short, you should think twice before you click that 'Submit' button because once you click it, we aren't going to let you Undo it.
Think twice, indeed.
And why else, pray, would they run a store?
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
BRING YOUR MAC PRO, MEET AT MIDNIGHT.
sudo eat my shorts
Man, that's nothing. My Macbook Pro gave me syphilis.
Thank you for your Fox News-like reportage of the story, which is barely a story. Apple DID deny the story, for starters. It was not printed with any scientific data, but a simple story in Liberation, the newspaper of French communists. You like communism, Fanboi Killa?
I don't come here any more, because it's been taken over by Apple haters. Have fun.
While I admire Greenpeace's ideals, they totally lose any support from the mainstream because their methods and arguments are just batshit crazy.
Have you seen the "no more Chernobyls" greenpeace video with lingering shots of the destroyed reactor building, some ill children and an ending message of "say no to nuclear power".
I'm sure if they take that to the logical conclusion, they should release a "No More hindenburgs!" video with "say no to air travel" at the end.
Their company "green score" campaign that criticised Apple for not doing various environmentally friendly things regarding their products (like stopping the use of bromine-based flame retardants in plastics, reducing the levels of lead and so on in their shipped machines) was total fiction, and prompted Apple to release a statement saying "well, actuall if you'd just asked us, we fixed all those things years ago, and are way ahead of everyone else that you gave higher scores to!". So much for research eh, greenpeace?
I'm about as lefty as you can go - national healthcare, high gas milage, save the planet, recycle etc etc, but I just cannot stand Greenpeace - they make the rest of us look bad. I guess they're the lefty version of Rush Limbaugh or Bill Orielly.
This is just a load of bovine feces.
I read the original French article and there is no scientific method and evidence to prove that the MacPro emits dangerous amounts of benzene. The test and methods they appeared to use is flawed and are not fact and cannot be used in a real court. Also they didn't test any other computers so they can say that MacPro is worst than others.
This is just another article to try justify a lawsuit against Apple for money.
Anything can "stink" but does to prove it is harmful? Remember that "stink" is a relative term and one person's "stink" is another man's "rose." We all fluctuate but should we ban the human race? Please live a life.
Being that Macs are made like other computers with fairly standard parts except for going on ohh Macs are Evil rant I would say. What other computers do the same thing and how to stop it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I have a Mac Pro on my desk. Its been there, running, for over 18 months now.
When it was first installed and powered on it emitted the strangest smell I have ever known from any computer ever. And I've been working with computers since the '80s. It was a kind of dry, musty smell.
I kept the windows open for a while because, frankly, the smell was quite strong and disturbing.
After a time the smell went away.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
sniffed the Mac Pro a few too many times
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Now we know what killed Steve Jobs.
Stop smoking your computers!
Yes, it's all explained here.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
So that smell was my mac, Not my dog dropping Hiroshima farts.
Totally agree. Greenpeace seems to be of the "by any means necessary" school of thought, and from what I've read about them are absolutely not above reporting negligible concentrations as dangerous, implying falsehoods, and even outright faking data. Worse than useless.
As an aside, your "lefty" list makes me kind of sad. I don't count myself as either left or right, just rational. But "high gas mileage" and "recycle" are just plain common sense, not some kind of political agenda. And "save the planet" can be taken to simply mean "don't shit in your own bed", which is also just plain common sense. It's a sad commentary on the state of politics when such obvious things get considered as "lefty".
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Got mine in Feb. No dodgy smells. This story smacks of sensationalism
Maybe only certain Mac Pros smell. I wonder if they are all made in the same Chinese factory.
how about knocking the MBP for real reasons? The mains problems I had with it have been that it locks up frequently (especially when/after using Bluetooth, which is irritating as I use Skype for hours each day) or hangs trying to restart.
I'll have had my MacBook Pro 14 months this month, October, and the only problem other than with an external hard drive I had with it is that sometimes it doesn't wake up right away. I'll have to close and reopen it a few tymes to get it to wakeup. While I could take it into the Genius Bar it hasn't aggravated me enough yet.
Had to stop using the Express34 card I got from the Apple Store as that would cause it to lock up reading an external harddrive
The one problem I've had with my external drive, which uses USB though I have a second one that uses Firewire but I haven't used it yet, is that sometimes I can't drag and drop files and folders from one place to another on it. Whether it's a problem with the Mac or the hdd I don't know.
Bad as NT4.
After using Windows almost exclusively for more than 10 years, I finally switched to the Mac last year. During those 10 plus years though NT4 was the most stable and usable Windows I've used. I never had it crash or show me the BSOD.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Who the hell modded this interesting?!
I hate printers.
A bit over 2 years ago when the cat I had died the vet asked me if I wanted him to do an autopsy to find out why it died. I'd certainly expect a vet to offer to do one, knowing why could help prevent something from a premature death.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
He didn't mean the MacBookPro (MBP), he meant Mac Pro, you know, the big desktop systems, one of these [apple.com].
The MacBook Pro's had an awful toxic stink problem as of November 2006. I got one and for a month breathed nasty plastic-burn smell that really got in my mucus membranes in my nose - the only other time being when I've ridden on coal-fired locomotives.
I finally figured out that running SETI@Home for a week got the machine so hot that all of the badness burned off. So, I assume it was something to do with the CPU, thermal paste, or similar component (memory controller?) - I had the visuals all off.
I know I wrote about it somewhere...hrm, not on my blog.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Pedantry won't save your queen now Mac Fanboy!
Muahahahahahahaaa!!!
Bot Assisted Blogging
>Who the hell modded this interesting?!
Someone who is intrigued by your ideas and wishes to subscribe to your newsletter?
... seem to recall Greenpeace going after Apple in the past as well...
When I read that Greenpeace was involved in this, accusation, the believability of the article went to essentially zero. Why is Apple singled out for this. All computers have pretty much the same stuff in them these days and are built by the same factories in China. So whatever "toxic smell" somebody accuses Apple computers of emitting would also come from other brands of computer and all kinds of electronics. The processes used to make all electronic gadgets are not all that dissimilar. If Consumer Reports had come out with such a report I might read it more carefully, but Greenpeace has a huge axe to grind against Apple which apparently is on their shitlist..
All theory is gray
Well there went an estimated $3.84 USD in Smirnoff spewed across keyboard, monitor, and nasal membranes!
After the nasal passages quit burning, I WILL appreciate the humor! :-)
Thanks for this one!!
P.S. Can we just wait for the gathering, and nuke the whole bunch, or is that too risky?
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I used to get lunch close by at Taco Bueno everyday, and would have all kinds of problems:
Paint peeling off the walls.
Window rattling at random intervals.
Cow-orkers entering my office would keel over in a dead faint...had to call 911 often to revive them...alas, some could not be revived.
The smoke/fire alarm going off every afternoon several times.
Arrested by the DHS 63 times in 3 months for 'biological weapons attacks' of a 'terrorist nature'. (funny thing, none of the investigators survived to trial, so charges were dropped!)
And worse of all, frequent headaches and hallucinations.
So...
I consulted with the IT Dept. to find out where they got lunch and changed my habits to match theirs.
Now, no one comes to my office unless they have problems, and I am not bothered with party invitations anymore!
Only half of them that actually bother me need CPR.
There is no paint on the walls to peel.
I now have a Big Red Button(tm) to push to set off the alarms.
Now, if I could only find an innocuous way to deal the 'Fart of Death' at will to PHB's.....
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I suppose I labelled myself with the term most used to describe my thinking, and since my politics tend to go that way too, I guess it;s an easy thing to fall into.
A counterpoint to that would be that I am *totally* pro-nuclear power, as a solution to our energy needs well into the future, alongside other solutions such as solar, wind, hydro etc. We need to build more nuclear power stations yesterday.
My "save the planet" one was a little glib - I took it as a prompt from Al Gore's film where he shows a poster produced to show the pros and cons of environmental concerns with a scales, that has money/gold on one side, representing the economy, and the entire globe on the other side!
I actually live in the UK, so while our political system is still a 2 horse race, there's still a reasonably effective third party so all is not lost - still, I find myself voting Labour more often than not.
Well the sad thing is that, at least in the US, the positions I described are "lefty". The right is so knee-jerk stupid here that they are against saving money through good gas mileage, recycling, and against doing the sane thing by saving the planet simply because the left is for it all.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.