Alan Cox's Exploding Laptop

Bowie J. Poag writes to mention a page put up to commemorate the explosion of Alan Cox's laptop. From the article: "Alan was on the other side of the room from the laptop. I was elsewhere. He yelled out, I ambled towards the room in my own good time, and then I heard 'Fire! Real fire! Call the fire brigade, now!' and I speeded up a bit. From Alan subsequently, I gather there was an explosion and flying pieces of laptop, and a fireball, and a couple of fires started where (presumably) boiling battery landed, and one fragment smashed an LCD monitor. And then there was smoke and smell (there is still smell) and smoke alarm wailing and firemen and sirens and paramedics (happily unneeded) and police and a man with a notebook asking questions for the fire report.'"

Re:His own fault...

[AKAImBatman]

Perhaps he should have considered an Apple or Dell instead.

Or perhaps he should have bought his battery in shrinkwrap from a reputable dealer rather than getting an after-market battery off of eBay? Even if it's a "genuine" IBM, for all he knows he ended up with a recall unit that somehow (*cough*) got resold on the open market.

There are some things you DO NOT trust after-market vendors for. One of those things happens to be a highly explosive Lithium Ion battery pack. There are enough problems with the first party units to give pause to anyone even considering third party units. Getting off of eBay? Now that's just asking for trouble. :-/

Re:It's not that surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe somebody will build a laptop that doesn't require you to "take the battery out of the computer unless they need it." I have a UPS battery backup for my desktop system, and I don't have to pull the battery out of it when I'm not expecting to need to use the battery. That would defeat the whole point of having the thing. I think a lot of people are using their laptops like that, it's their main computer and they like the fact that it has a battery too so they can survive without it plugged in for an hour or two.

Laptop?

[RKBA]

Good thing no one actually puts Laptop computers in their lap.

Wait 'til the FAA sees this...

[junk]

With the current trend in battery explosions for laptops, I wonder how long until all laptops are considered explosive devices and aren't allowed to be used on planes. Perhaps we should start using things that are more stable. Like radioactive material or internal combustion engines. Ooh! Or we could all get neat little hand cranks!

What am I going to do on my flight to Germany now?

Re:His own fault...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the "reputable dealers" have ridiculous markups on replacement parts. You can get a digital camera battery for $40 or for $4. For most people the $4 batteries work just the same and don't fail. Actually I am under the impression that more name brand batteries have been the cause of laptop fires than others, perhaps because they are supposed to be the best performing batteries, so they have to cut more corners than generics. One thing which could really help the situation is standardization: It would bring prices down by enabling competition and reducing the number of different battery packs a manufacturer needs to support. That would pretty much eliminate the need or desire to buy off-brand batteries.

Re:Brigade

[robzster1977]

Pretty much all [london-fire.gov.uk] of [cheshirefire.gov.uk] the [fire-uk.org] UK [wiltshirefirebrigade.com]. And since it appears that the UK started forming fire brigades just after the Great Fire Of London [wikipedia.org], that's probably where the name originates.

Besides, 'Fire Department'? What's that? 'Department of Fire'? Hey, sounds like a fantastic place to work! Legal arson! ;)

ya know why?

[way2trivial]

'cause the reputable merchants have to have enough margin the accept returns, and recalls, and make things right.

that's also the difference between the world of walmart, and the world of macys....

Re:Like, hey dude! You got one HOT De//

[ivoras]

Shouldn't all this exploding-laptop trend really lead to producing more durable cases for portable devices? Like, if a "laptop" really exploded like this while on someone's lap, the person could be seriously injured. If it [the laptop] had a harder casing, possibly made of titanium, the risk of injury would be much less.

Re:Alan Cox...

[Millenniumman]

But everyone on /. does have the Wikipedia reflex for unknown things. Or is that just me?

Re:Like, hey dude! You got one HOT De//

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that would depend on which part would be made more durable. If you reinforced the entire casing then you might just make the explosion build up more pressure and potentially making it even more dangerous. It would probably be a good thing to reinforce the entire casing except the back so the explosion is aimed in the safest direction, like a shaped charge.

Re:wouldn't it be ironic

[Gleng]

wouldn't it be ironic if he was masturbating and his cock also exploded?

No, Alanis, it would be a coincidence. It would be ironic if he was working on a battery status monitoring program when it exploded.

Re:Ridiculous markup?

[Anonymous Coward]

sell their batteries for less money because demand would be higher

In Soviet Russia maybe. For a "business traveller" your lack of insight into market economy basics is appalling.

BTW, it is suspected that the recent wave of recalls was necessary due to Sony using thinner membranes to increase the capacity of their batteries. Unfortunately the thinner membranes are more easily pierced, resulting in short circuits and fires. Do you think the off-brand batteries use cheap cells or expensive "high capacity" Sony cells? Can you answer your question which one is more likely to explode, the Sony-made to-the-limit battery or the cheap aftermarket battery with standard cells?