Posted on 07/10/2006 9:21:04 AM PDT by FormerACLUmember
AN INQUIRER READER attending a conference in Japan was sat just feet away from a laptop computer that suddenly exploded into flames, in what could have been a deadly accident.
Gaston, our astonished reader reports: "The damn thing was on fire and produced several explosions for more than five minutes".
Should you witness such an event, his advice is, "Don't try anything courageous/stupid, stay away, away, away!"
"For the record, this is a Dell machine," notes Gaston. "It is only a matter of time until such an incident breaks out on a plane," he suggests.
Our witness managed to catch all the action in these amazing pictures.
"Fire extinguishers leave a mess on your suit and belongings; pack your stuff (if you can) and leave, leave, leave!" he advises.
We don't have any further details of the model of the computer in question. In light of the evidence, however, we'd suggest you avoid actually using a laptop on your lap. Ouch.
The cause of the the fire was definitely the batteries. The 'multiple pops' are the give-away. Lithium batteries are also sensative to heat, so it's possible that when they over-heated, they went into thermal runaway.
*gulp* My sister has just bought a Dell laptop... uh-oh, I'm sitting at a Dell desktop... I hope desktops aren't affected...
Thanks, I will file that under the many things I didn't know. I assume majority of laptop batteries are lithium?
These days, that would be a correct assumption.
Not just laptops, but cell phones, pagers, etc.
If the battery is flat and wide, it's a lithium. If it's round, it'll say what chemistry the battery uses. (dry cell, alkaline, nicad, nimh, lithium, etc.)
All round lithium cells incorporate the protective circuitry, so they're pretty safe.
Some flat lithium cells do, some don't. Sometimes the manufacturer will incorporate the protective circuitry into the charger. So, it's the flat cells you have to watch out for.
The absolute worse thing to do is to use a non-lithium charger on lithium cells. Neither the voltages nor the current (amps) will match.
As I wrote above, unlike all other battery technology, lithiums are sensative to both voltage and current (amp) errors. If you use a charger with voltage too high, or if the charging current exceeds 1C/cell (single-cell capacity), or if you overdischarge the cell, expect a puffed pack, followed shortly by a toxic, corrosive white cloud, followed shortly by an intense, spitting flame.
Oh, heck! I was hoping it was some esoteric new techie slang that I could learn and then impress my eldest son, who is an IT guy.
Yes, I have gotten the porn offers in the past but not lately. I have never seen "pr0n" in the subject line, however. Unfortunately, I do get lots and lots of the "male enhancement" junk, though, promising in the subject line what I can do to or with or for "her". What makes it even more ridiculous is that I am a happily married woman! :-)
Before an anti-Mac fanatic answers I will. Apple's laptops are not immune from this exploding battery either. An Apple iBook G4 burst into flame after being left on by an 11 year old boy a couple of months ago.
He did leave it sitting on a shag rug on the floor which may have impeded the cooling airflow, but it did indeed burst into flames.
Also the initial production run of Mac 5300 laptops was prone to overheating and some of them got hot enough to warp the plastic case. The problems were traced to a Korean battery manufacturer. 28,000 Mac laptops were recalled for battery replacement. At the same time, 129,000 HP laptops were recalled because of battery overheating... the batteries were manufactured by the same Korean company that was cutting corners on specs.
Thanks, Dan, for that answer.
https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/
You're welcome.
Maybe he was looking up hotbabe.com.
(GROAN)
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