-Dude, your Dell just freaking blew up!!!

Dude, your Dell just freaking blew up!!!

As I sit here typing I'm reminded of what happened at roughly 4 p.m. Central Standard time at my office (about an hour ago); especially since my hands still smell like 'fire extinguisher'. While specifying instrumentation tag names on a flow drawing my attention is turned towards the haze building up on the other side of the engineering area. I started hearing some distant prattle about “fire”, “hmmm... what could this possibly be?” I think to myself. Upon further investigation I've come to the conclusion that someone's Dell laptop just freakin blew up and started a cozy little desktop fire!!!

Since I’m not in the mood for S’mores... "Oh, this is priceless" I think to myself; as I turn straight back to my desk where, from within my back-pack, I whip out my 7.2MP digital camera.

One of our IT guys put out the flames (yes, I said flames) and thusly covered the entire area with fire extinguisher ‘material’. The battery burned its way straight through the laptop creating the beautiful hole with which is so beautifully depicted in the picture. The fire department showed up. The police department showed up. The entire lower floor was allowed to leave early and as we stood there in front of the building we simply couldn’t resist... we jokingly called the engineer a terrorist as he was being asked a few questions by the friendly officer.

The most priceless moment of this entire ordeal is something that I, with regret, do not have a picture of. While taking pictures through the haze (after everyone had evacuated the area and before the fire department came to kick us out), the engineer who’s laptop it was had been spotted out of the corner of my eye. Apparently he heard there was a fire and that we all had to go outside. Being the noble engineer that he is, he quickly wanted to grab his laptop!!! HAHAHA The look on his face, as he stretched out his arms in disbelief was priceless!!! Again, I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of that... I was laughing too damn hard! (I was only able to get a picture of him walking away, as I was intermittently laughing and coughing at the same time)

Here are a few pictures, please enjoy them as much as the Dell representatives and the AWESOME crew over at THG surely will when I send them the link.

Regards,
The Automation Engineer who had to go home early!




*edit* - This is what it did to the desk...


And my favorite (after having to pry the melted plastic apart to open it up):

GREAT STUFF!!

Thread of the Week. Someone sticky this.

haha... For those of you interested... here's a close-up of the battery. It was tossed into the recycling bin so quickly that it melted the side of the container...

I need to show this to the people I used to work for. I worked for a retail store and they would swear by dell(not the way we swear about dell). They thought dells were the greatest, but those of us that were required to sell them, hated them.

Heres the link to the japanese laptop fire.

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/lap [...] 182257.php

Huh, are you sure you have the right thread. I'm not sure what the Turions have to do with this topic.

I wonder if it is a pure heat issue, or if there is some abnormal chemical reaction. Maybe the chemicals from the battery somehow reacts to the case material causing the fire.

You're probably right about that. It probably just overloads and sends way more power than it should until the battery can't take it anymore and explodes. Hopefully there wasn't anyone working too close to that dell and got hurt.

nah, dell can just sell these to the US military as anti armor weapons for the marines.... they'll be like : NOW not only does the dell resist to mimitary life! u can use it as a INCENDIARY BOMB, lomb them at your favorate tech ennemys ^^..

ROTFL !!! i'm glad i bought a mac, allthough i'd think twice before putting that computer on my privates again....

If one of these exploded while they were on someone's lap, dell would be so screwed. That person would get sooooo much money from dell in compensation.

turions run cooler than Pentium M's

Maybe they could launch a whole line of keychains with those laptops.

oh, i forgot to add, FIRE IN THE HOLE......!!! ROTFL

Just because I said that dell would have to pay a lot of money in compensation doesn't mean that it would be common knowledge. There are so many court cases and issues that are never revealed to the public and are still settled. Americans don't turn everything into a scandal.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32583

i know its the inquirer but its and artice on titled "the science behind exploding laptops" with interviews of some people who should know what they are talking about (even if inq doesnt). hope it helps

It's known as a "joke". Dell recently announced it's going to use AMD processors, and to anger AMD fans like 9inch people often make jokes about AMD's quality.

I'm just glad that you had your camera.

Thanks for that one dude, made me laugh so hard i had to take a break...Nice pictures too.

Get em while they are hot !!! New Space Age materials devoloped by NASA for use by the space shuttle !!! If its good enough for reentry then its good enough to protect the family jewels from your blazing Dell !!! Heat intended for external use only limit one per customer and if you act now the first 5,000 orders will come with an asbestos athletic supporter !!! hehehehe Dude your Dell looks like hell

now whats really fun is throwing 100% potassium into HCl!

This model should be renamed the New Dell Lapdance! 8O

So today I had to examine the damage again... Here is what it did to the desk...

Henrik, i don't think that fires are very funny, i am glad that it was a big joke to you because it wasn't your stuff that burned up just wait until you have your house burn up.

What's going to happen when one of these things lights off on an airplane at twenty thousand feet? If it isn't caused by over charging, then that's a very likely scenario...stevenpchurch

oh. that guy is screwed

I can see it now: "Well, we're going through a tough time in our company right now." "Why is that?" "Well, our accounting department is in Guantanmo Bay."