Gizmodo
At a conference in Japan, a Dell laptop suddenly exploded into flames, and lucky for its owner the fiery blast occurred while the PC was sitting on a table and not in his lap. An onlooker reported that the notebook continued to burn, producing several more explosions over the course of about five minutes.
The model of the offending Dell notebook wasn't mentioned, but since it was of the Windows persuasion, we can now boast that we are unbiased in our reports of fiery laptops, both Mac and PC. It's only a matter of time before something like this happens on an airplane.
Dell laptop explodes at Japanese conference [The Inquirer]
Comments
Shhh!!!!! If they hear you they won't let us bring laptops on the planes.
Its hard to tell, but that looks like one of the laptops involved in the Dell Battery Recall program. The reason they are being recalled: "It is possible for these batteries to overheat, which could pose a risk of fire." To see if your notebook is part of the recall, take a look at https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/
Errr... Exploding for 5 minutes?!! Why is no one using a fire extinguisher? Surely the best part of having a fire is being able to run in with a fire extinguisher and making "neee norrr neee norrr" noises like a fire engine.
That'll teach you to look at goatse.
5 minutes? Do they have fire extinguishers in Japan? I bet they were using a non-oem battery!
I bet they had OSX for Intel running.
This happened in my office, in a less dramatic fashion, about a year ago. Someone's Dell Latitude started to act funny, then smell funny, then billow smoke. I believe it did actually ignite. This happened a couple of weeks after my work laptop (another Latitude) had a massive hard drive failure, exactly three days after I received it. Ah well.
Smokes on a plane! Seriously, I have a friend who used to work for the-company-formarly-known-as-failure-analysis and they have been investigating the flammability of LiPolymer batteries for some time now. His verdict? Shit is dangerous and he wouldn't put it on his lap. There are probably some pretty serious payoff to keep people quiet about these events. On the other hand, my friend who spent time investigating teflon won't use teflon pans anymore so maybe everything is dangerous.
Dells on a Plane! Good thing planes have extinguishers; generally would be more of a risk to the user than the aircraft. (In-flight mag or two might not be pristine. Poor SkyMall.) This is definitely the risk of any battery if it overheats; that had been the issue with the Apple 5300 series under lab conditions (though not in public like this). Reader on my site the other day had a tamer "smoke from a laptop" experience.
So much for Windows Vista Beta. Try again, Bill.
Wow, I guess exploding Eddie's prices really are that low!
My laptop lives without its battery, which is stored safely in the freezer...
OMG... Bush and Steve Jobs are getting scared now. The terrorists are gonna switch to Windows based Laptops instead of bombs! So much for national security... But on the other hand, your gonna see a sudden spike in the amount of Dells sold in Iraq Dells! Beats roadside Bombs!
We need to equip all government computers with these batteries and then make the explosions controllable via incorrect passwords. Next time some idiot government employee takes his laptop with a million SSNs home for the weekend, the data will be safe! This will also solve Dells impending PR crisis.
The Lab is right. Lithium Polymer Ion batteries ARE dangerous. I recently read an article regarding power tool batteries. The newest cordless drills from Milwaukee, Makita, Dewalt and Bosh have them. Up until recently LiO batteries could not be used in power tools because they would explode under high drain conditions. Only with the use of specialized circuitry that throttles the drain and monitors the batteries contantly for temperature rise, current drain and voltage they have now been able to make power tools with them. If the circuitry determines that it's unsafe it will shutdown the battery on the power tool. Obviously when you start building high capacity batteries for the ever increasing power demand of laptops... this is bound to happen if the quality and or safety factors are just too slim...
More likely cause at a conference with foreigners: Cheap intl power adapter.
Was he trying to fire up Firefox?
.. or the Vista compatibility checker?
Man would i love to hear that Dell Support call. "... No. I'm trying to tell you. My laptop straight up EXPLODED." "I understand, sir. Now please hold down the 'power' button for 30 seconds in order to discharge any residual power from the motherboard..."
Did Jack Bauer have access to this laptop?
Generally speaking - I'd say charging the laptop has the higher risk of explosion. Current flow too or from the battery causes heating, which lowers internal resistance, causing more internal current to flow, causing more heat, causing more internal current to flow, causing more heat... The charger may be adding to the current by up to a few amps, making the whole issue far worse. If the battery is discharging, (and not plugged into the charger), it will still generate heat and lowering internal resistance, BUT, if your really lucky, the battery will go flat before it gets to 'thermal runnaway'. Batteries inside the case of the laptop near the heatsink doesnt help either. I'd guess that the exploding laptops had nearly fully discharged batteries before they were plugged into the charger, and were also being used (maybe high computational workload increasing the temp), and had low airflow over them.... Either that or all these people worked for the IMF.... which is a far better explanation.
Latitudes are known for internal screws working loose and rolling around inside the case - depending on where the screw lands, it can short out circuits and the result is usually a melted motherboard. Although I haven't seen one this spectacular.
It's the table cloth much like the iBook was due to the carpet, people need to quit putting "space heater" laptops on top of "insulating" materials . . .
I use LiPo batteries in radio control planes, and the flammability of these batteries under high load (charging or discharging) has been known for ages. There have been several examples of R/C modellers losing rooms, workshops or garages to fire when charging LiPos unattended, and a lot of us use fireproof boxes (or old ammo cases) as a container when charging LiPos. Strikes me as interesting that laptop manufacturers don't have the same safety standards. The crux of the issue is that the more contained energy you require, the higher the liklihood of some sort of catastrophic failure. I mean ffs a hand grenade is a contained energy storage device in its most basic form.
I can almost guarantee it was a charging failure. The sensors probably failed and allowed the battery to overcharge. HAve a look at this video showing deliberate overcharging of a LiPo battery: the flameout looks identical: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=369026057042370560...
how would do that to a laptops dodo!!!!!!!!
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