This laptop is so hot it burst into flames
June 21, 2006 by Mike Wendland
Apple’s MacBook laptops may be getting all the buzz these days for speed and efficiency but at a recent trade show in Japan, there was a Dell laptop so hot it suddenly burst into flames. Really. Here’s the story and a pic. Says it even “exploded.”
Yeah, I can believe it. I bought a Dell 5100 3 years ago. It gets really hot after 30 mins of usage. Dell refuses to acknowledge the problem or resolve it with current and past customers.
See, I don’t understand this. Yes, my Dell laptop gets warm from time to time. So does my wife’s. It’s a machine, it produces heat. But we can each leave them on and running for hours, DAYS at a time and they don’t “explode”.
I have an idea of what might have been the problem with this particular laptop. Some Dell laptop models stupidly have their fan bottom-mounted in the laptop. If the little rubber “feet” that keep the laptop raised and therefore creating a channel of air have been removed or lost, the laptop is sitting flat on the fan with no way for that air to escape except back inward into the laptop. My guess is that’s what happened with this Dell laptop at the trade show and the green tablecloth essentially clogged up the fan, causing the machine to severely overheat and burst into flames.
Is it a poor configuration on Dell’s part? Yes. But could it have been prevented by anyone with an ounce of sense when it comes to not only computers but basic physics? Of course.
The url is wrong. It’s going to http://http//www.theinquirer.net/?article=32550
but it should be
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32550
All laptops get hot these days due to faster CPUs, but it is not likely that heat that caused that PC to blow, but rather an overcharged or defective battery pack. There have been reports of couterfeit cellphone and laptop batteries exploding into flames for the last several years.