HP & Dell Face Lawsuits From Exploding Hardware

An anonymous reader writes "Dell and Hewlett-Packard are both facing lawsuits over catastrophic equipment failures that lead to fires and injuries last year. 'In one case, a North Dakota auto lube shop owner claims that a Dell monitor he purchased caught fire and burned down his business ... meanwhile, an Arkansas man has sued HP, claiming that an HP Compaq Presario PC he purchased from Wal-Mart burst into flames, causing a blaze that destroyed his house and seriously injured his daughter.'"

Re:Hello.

[Bo0bMeIsTeR]

Same company makes your mac laptop that made my dell laptop. :)

Two monitors burnt

[All Names Have Been]

In our office, we've had two monitors burn - one just with smoke pouring out of it, and one with nice flames coming out the top. They were both old, and it looks like dust inside was the culprit. Unplugging the monitors in both cases pretty much stopped the fire. I'm actually surprised this doesn't happen more often.

More common than you might think...

[codegen]

I have a friend who had a monitor catch fire. In his words: "There was a pop, a cloud of smoke, and a little flame inside my monitor last night." It was not an old monitor either.

Power supplies, power supplies!

[gnuman99]

The problem is almost exclusively the power supplies.

Over the last few years, I had 5 power supplies fail, 2 of them with a giant bang. Heck, I'm sure that they would result in the place being burned to the ground if it wasn't for me pulling the cord out of the wall. The culprit in both cases was a cheap-ass power supply that came with the case of those $50 deals.

Scenario one. The box (P3-450) was powered off. Was changing the network card though I noticed the power supply was suspiciously warm even though it was off. When I plugged the box back in (didn't had time to turn it on), caps popped in the PS with 3 large bangs and 12V rail became 120V AC rail. Yanked the cord out of the wall within about 2 seconds but the damage was done. Everything connected to 12V was fried. Sound gone. CD/HD fried (CD drive opened spontaneously like in those horror movies and the CD that was in it flew out, hit the wall and shattered!). The mobo/CPU/ram survived as only the 12V rail was affected. Later, I plugged in the PS on the workbench and within 2 seconds there was a fire inside the power supply. I didn't wait longer to see what would happen, but I can image that the place would burn down if that PS popped in the middle of the night.

Scenario two. A different power supply. This was an old ATX power supply I was using for a different purpose - powering some equipment 5V equipment on stand-by power rail (yes, less power than it was rated for at that rail :). Was working fine for a long time. All voltages were fine. Then one day it just exploded in flames. Now, this PS was not in a PC at the time, so maybe not worthy of "burning the house down" scenario as it was only plugged in when someone was around.

The last 3 cases are power supplies that died or were about to die. One of a Antec 300W PS - that one worked fine then just stopped working. Another was an HP propriatory PS - working fine then not. Died the Right Way. And the third one was an unnamed PS that just stopped giving right voltages. The 12V went down to 9V over one year and system stability was gone.

So, at least 1 in 5 cases so far would result in "house burn down" scenario. Now, I do not keep any but the best PS boxes (Enermax) anywhere where a fire would destroy they house. The cheap ones are relegated to the concrete basement.

There is NO OTHER component of any electronic device but the power supply that can destroy your house. And yes, a monitor also has a power supply, though a bit safer than the PC box.

Of course, there is no 100% fire proof anything so the only way is to mitigate the problem, and also mitigate the energy waste problem at the same time. Unplug your devices when you are not using them. Unplug the TV/DVD/computer when you are not around. If you need the box up 24/7 (eg. server running your home phone system, bt, etc.), put that box in the basement on a concrete floor without flammables around it. For the rest, keep it unplugged when not using - surge protected works great here. This may save your house, and maybe $100+ in wasted "stand-by" power per year.

I've seen monitors in auto shops....

[eth1]

...and the are filth-captial-E! I'm sure the thick layer of dust mixed with oily residue inside the monitor had NOTHING to do with this.

I'm willing to be the other one is similar... cat or dog hair, maybe?

Re:Doesn't suprise me.

[trum4n]

A girl i know brought a 19inch HP LCD over to my dorm room, saying "FIXIT!!!" No backlight, but the thing still had a picture, and it smelled like sulfur. "Erin, what happened when it quit" "it filled my room with black smoke" "oh...." *unplugs* so i popped it open, The transistor that does the DC to AC conversion in the back light inverter had exploded. I mean, really, like took out the Cap next to it, and cracked the PCB. The thing was 9mo old, with a 6 month warranty. BTW, it was nice and clean inside, no dust at all. She took good care of it. Is that even legal? i know for cars thats called a lemon if it lasts less then a year, and you get a new car, FREE.

Where's the UL

[PPH]

Where's the UL [ul.com] while all this is going on? Or the NFPA [nfpa.org]?

Its possible that these incidents are statistically insignificant given the number of products sold that don't explode. Or there would be new rules proposed in the codes to address these problems. These folks just live for writing new rules. In fact, there are some pretty strict rules covering electrical installations in hazardous locations like gas stations. Its just that no construction code can keep someone from running an extension cord and plugging in a PC around gas fumes.