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Dell's Embarrassment Grows: Another Laptop Fire |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Monday, 31 July 2006 |
Dell is looking straight down the barrel of a Public
Relations disaster as another set of images featuring flaming laptops hits the
Internet.
Okay, no pictures of actually laptop explosions this time,
but a poster on the high profile Forum
On Tom's Hardware has a comprehensive set of pics detailing the aftermath
of yet another Dell notebook meltdown.
The news of an exploding Dell laptop caught on camera at
a conference in Japan
less than a month ago has barely died down and now another Dell notebook
battery has burst into flames.
Although there is no actual photo of the flames, the close
up of what the fire did to the desk makes your eyes water when you think this
could happen on somebody's lap.
It could be no more than coincidence, with the recording of
the second event being prompted by the first. It has been made clear by various
experts that this is not such an uncommon occurrence with any brand laptop.
However, there is no doubt that the profile of these two
events will bring unwanted attention to Dell's laptop range and could signify a
very real problem if the two laptop's share a common manufacturing heritage.
Dell could be forced into a product recall if it is found
that a particular batch of batteries, or notebooks, is found to be prone to such
antisocial behaviour.
It would not be the first time the company has had to recall
product due to battery problems.
Dell is not alone though, both HP and Apple
have also had high profile battery problem recalls in the past year or so.
However, the aftermath of the Japan incident has forced a few Dell
skeleton's out of the closet. Just last week U.S. reseller website CRN reported
that sources supposedly from within the company confirmed that Dell kept quiet for at least two years before finally
recalling 22,000 notebooks last year.
In this
story, CRN revealed that Dell knew of literally dozens of cases where
laptop's had burst into flames before they identified the issue as a broad
ranging threat.
Now the company seems forced
to be a little more transparent since the Japan incident. CRN has also
reported that Dell is working with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission to look into the matter.
PS: A reader has just pointed out this other instance of a
Dell notebook exploding into flames, this time in Singapore.
Lithium Ion batteries are very susceptible to voltage irregularity when
charging, they react badly to overcharging, short circuits, excessive heat and
rapid discharge. The chemicals used in them can spontaneously ignite once they
reach a critical temperature.
The rate of incident is relatively low when you consider the
hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of these batteries already in the
market.
Lithium Ion batteries became a popular alternative to the
older nickel metal hydride batteries which suffered from memory effect, were
heavier and stored less power.
UPDATE: Dell To Recall
Exploding Batteries
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