Dell's Exploding Laptop Autopsy

An anonymous reader writes "Dell has gone to the Consumer Product Safety Commission looking for help determining the cause of death for its exploding laptop. Dell has been blaming the lithium ion battery; the commission seems to have had a few problems with those batteries in the past."

So there are two cases now?

[dubmun]

The Inquirer published a letter to the editor on July 4, purportedly from a second Dell customer (identified only as "Rich S.," an IT administrator from Pittsburgh) who suffered an exploding laptop.

Maybe it is time for Dell to think about issuing a recall before someone gets hurt. Just think if someone was using their laptop near a other flamable/explosive substances when suddenly BOOM!

Re:Li-Po use in RC

[geekoid]

it's not that you are 'smart enough' it's that peoplec are about there hobby, usually to a miniscule scale.

I was surprised to find they where putting these in laptops.
To answer your question, ban them from laptops. No governemtnregulation will be needed because I believe the risk od using these batteries is high then expected and that will cause the laptop manufacturers from producing them, eventually.

And yeah, those batteries can get HOT.

I'm not a big Dell fan...

[citking]

...but I do applaud their willingness to at least show a hint of taking responsiblity for these problems. If there is a hint of them refusing to help people affected by this condition I haven't seen it yet, not out of ignorance but for not Googling it.

Today I got a letter in the mail from my old insurance agency who is being sued in a class-action lawsuit regarding discrimination based on credit reports against the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Of course, the class action settlement included the phrase "xxx is admitting no wrongdoing in this case..." Maybe there wasn't any wrongdoing; I don't know. But this damned phrase has become so commonplace it was the first sentence I looked for when opening the letter with the details of the settlement.

For once I'd like to see someone step up and take responsibility. The problem is these people read the same headlines I do every day in which some dumbass can sue for whatever reason they deem applies to them and win millions in a settlement.

We can't have companies exposing themselves to such litigation (excepting that there is no real negligence there) and getting sued into obliion. But just once I want to see a company take the high road and say "Yeah, we fucked up. Sorry. What can we do to make it better?"

Dell gets a smiley face in my daily repoirt card for this.

Re:So there are two cases now?

[cab15625]

For example, I know someone who works in the oil industry out in Alberta and drags a laptop around from site to site to help keep track of stats. I don't know how many issues they have with fumes at the rigs, but I can easily believe that an exploding laptop would cause problems.

Re:Li-Po use in RC

[asuffield]

And the warnings about Li-Po batteries are pretty explicit. ... In the R/C hobby we are smart enough (well the majority anyhow) to treat Li-Pos with respect - but consumer laptops, that's somewhat scary.

Every consumer laptop comes with a thick book stating that each and every component may catch fire, explode, fail to work, cause the end of the world, kill your dog, or any number of other things, and it's your own damn fault if that happens and the manufacturer is not responsible. This means that nobody pays any attention to the 'safety' warnings, because 99% of them are total nonsense.

Consumer education is impossible until the manufacturers stop crying wolf about everything.

What if they Were on a Plane!

[BrendaEM]

What if this laptop was on a commercial ailiner, would they be able to put the fire out, being on 10 feet from thousands of gallons of fuel.

What if the laptop were in the baggage compartment? Would the exinguishersput out the fire in time.

How many lithiumn batteries on on planes?

Almost any lithium batter can start on fire if overloaded, or most batteries for that matter--even VRLA/SLA, but Lithium batteries in particular, becasue the lithium burns at a low tempature. Li-polymer batteries are supposed to be safer, but after time the lithuium becomes plated around the electodes.

Re:Why so little trolling?

[mwbauers]

That's because people have grown to expect this type of quality from Dell.

They are not used to seeing the like from Apple.