The reason behind the subject of this thread will become apparent pretty soon here.
First, let me start with the story.
I was sitting around at a friend's house, not much to do.. Someone gets an idea that they want to watch a movie that I had on my laptop. My friend has a 53inch Hitatchi TV, which is slightly larger than my laptop screen, so I figured I'd hook up up to that using an S-Video cable. I get the video working fine, and then I notice my battery starting to get low. I grab my AC power adapter, I plug it into the the wall first. I then go to plug it into the back of my laptop. I go to plug it in, trying to find the hole to plug it in, and POOF a huge spark and a puff of smoke right in my face. I stood there in shock for a second, then examined the situation. The laptop seemed fine, it did not shut off. The TV however did shut off. I turn the TV back on, and the display is working, whew, big relief... until I noticed there was no sound. All sound, internal speakers and audio out, ceased to work.
There is visible burn marks near the AC port, which you can clearly see in this picture.
Heres a link to the high resolution picture... (1.7mb)
Click here
As you can see, there is clearly a metal ring around the outside of the port. This metal appears to be part of the chassis itself. When the plug came in contact with it, poof...
Here is a few things I'm asking myself right now, and feel free to give me some input..
Is this a manufacturing defect specific to my laptop? Maybe someone with the same one can answer this question, does yours look the same?
What do you think emachines will do about this situation? I already got an RMA number and explained the situation. They said they are going to try and "recreate the incident". They also said they don't know what they can do about the TV.
Did the TV act as a ground for my laptop? Had I not had it plugged into the TV, would my laptop have taken the hit instead of the TV?
Should I demand a new laptop? They said they were going to look at this one, and possibly give me the same one back if they found "nothing wrong".
That's really all I can think of right now. If anyone has any input at all please respond to this thread.
-Matt
First, let me start with the story.
I was sitting around at a friend's house, not much to do.. Someone gets an idea that they want to watch a movie that I had on my laptop. My friend has a 53inch Hitatchi TV, which is slightly larger than my laptop screen, so I figured I'd hook up up to that using an S-Video cable. I get the video working fine, and then I notice my battery starting to get low. I grab my AC power adapter, I plug it into the the wall first. I then go to plug it into the back of my laptop. I go to plug it in, trying to find the hole to plug it in, and POOF a huge spark and a puff of smoke right in my face. I stood there in shock for a second, then examined the situation. The laptop seemed fine, it did not shut off. The TV however did shut off. I turn the TV back on, and the display is working, whew, big relief... until I noticed there was no sound. All sound, internal speakers and audio out, ceased to work.
There is visible burn marks near the AC port, which you can clearly see in this picture.
Heres a link to the high resolution picture... (1.7mb)
Click here
As you can see, there is clearly a metal ring around the outside of the port. This metal appears to be part of the chassis itself. When the plug came in contact with it, poof...
Here is a few things I'm asking myself right now, and feel free to give me some input..
Is this a manufacturing defect specific to my laptop? Maybe someone with the same one can answer this question, does yours look the same?
What do you think emachines will do about this situation? I already got an RMA number and explained the situation. They said they are going to try and "recreate the incident". They also said they don't know what they can do about the TV.
Did the TV act as a ground for my laptop? Had I not had it plugged into the TV, would my laptop have taken the hit instead of the TV?
Should I demand a new laptop? They said they were going to look at this one, and possibly give me the same one back if they found "nothing wrong".
That's really all I can think of right now. If anyone has any input at all please respond to this thread.
-Matt