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This happened two nights ago, I posted it on another forum, but thought I'd get some insight from this forum as well....
My friend's (former gf) Dell laptop exploded. She stepped out of the room, and heard a reasonably load boom. She thought that it might have been snow falling off the roof or something, but started smelling smoke and eventually heard the smoke alarms. She went back to the room and saw the mess.
The Optical drive was ejected across the room. Plastic pieces everywhere included some sort of ashy substance all over the wall behind her desk and on a curtain about 5 feet away from desk. I was not present during this.
Current status: I informed her call the fire department and tell them the laptop exploded. The fire department asked her (and her parents) to evacuate the home immediately and wait for them to arrive. Fire department electronics inspector confirmed battery was cause of explosion and they will be writing up a report. They also took pictures.
The inspector said that the report can be used to confront Dell about the situation.
----
Data backups are fully intact on a remote device. No one was hurt. Nearby walls and curtains can be considered damaged. Carpet was burned by flying fragments. Also, laptop is years out of warranty.
Questions:
1) Has anyone experienced this?
2) Does Dell have any liability here? Would the fire inspector be able to provide any insight here?
3) Does she have to worry about any toxicity left behind by the explosion? (She has 2 cats)
4) How do you clean the ash and stuff off the walls?
5) Anyone interested in purchasing an exploded Dell?
6) Any other next steps?
Additional notes:
1. We had checked for battery recall several times. This particular model did have a recall, but our serial # was not in range to qualify for it.
My friend's (former gf) Dell laptop exploded. She stepped out of the room, and heard a reasonably load boom. She thought that it might have been snow falling off the roof or something, but started smelling smoke and eventually heard the smoke alarms. She went back to the room and saw the mess.
The Optical drive was ejected across the room. Plastic pieces everywhere included some sort of ashy substance all over the wall behind her desk and on a curtain about 5 feet away from desk. I was not present during this.
Current status: I informed her call the fire department and tell them the laptop exploded. The fire department asked her (and her parents) to evacuate the home immediately and wait for them to arrive. Fire department electronics inspector confirmed battery was cause of explosion and they will be writing up a report. They also took pictures.
The inspector said that the report can be used to confront Dell about the situation.
----
Data backups are fully intact on a remote device. No one was hurt. Nearby walls and curtains can be considered damaged. Carpet was burned by flying fragments. Also, laptop is years out of warranty.
Questions:
1) Has anyone experienced this?
2) Does Dell have any liability here? Would the fire inspector be able to provide any insight here?
3) Does she have to worry about any toxicity left behind by the explosion? (She has 2 cats)
4) How do you clean the ash and stuff off the walls?
5) Anyone interested in purchasing an exploded Dell?
6) Any other next steps?
Additional notes:
1. We had checked for battery recall several times. This particular model did have a recall, but our serial # was not in range to qualify for it.
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