Two teenage boys in Thousand Oaks, California claim that their Dell laptop repeatedly burst into flames — and they’ve got the footage to prove it!
Check it out below. As if we needed another reason to hold onto our MacBooks!
The laptop allegedly didn’t stop at one explosion. After the first fire — which started while the laptop was charging O — was extinguished, the laptop was unplugged and taken outside, where it apparently started burning again. It then proceeded to burst into flames two more times, before being sprayed with a fire extinguisher.
Without being able to examine the laptop there’s no way of confirming for definite whether this is legit and not a hoax. However, there have been numerous previous instances of lithium-ion batteries catching fire.
The most notable recent instance was Samsung’s ill-fated Galaxy Note 7, which prompted a series of scary incidents when it was launched — ranging from torching a family’s jeep to causing the evacuation of a Southwest Airlines flight after a passenger’s Note 7 emitted a thick grey-green smoke and burned a hole in the plane’s carpet.
Other incidents involving exploding tech devices have blamed dodgy third party chargers, which one recent report claimed are overwhelmingly likely to fail basic safety tests.
We’ll observe the outcome of this current exploding Dell story with interest.
Source: NBC
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
6 responses to “Video shows laptop bursting into flames over and over”
This is why I have a camera in EVERY room of my house.
You gotto get a dell dude !
I bet it’s not an original Dell battery since it’s four years old. It’s probably a cheap knockoff. This is why you need to be careful when you replace batteries in your portables or phones. Since China has no UL or government safety regulations, an faulty made potentially explosive battery is legal to sell and export to us without any testing or warnings.
Lithium ion batteries are so dangerous that the federal government has made regulations restricting shipping batteries. You can’t ship batches of batteries on any commercial flight, cargo only and they have to be below 30% charge.
You also have to be careful about buying knockoff chargers. They can be deadly. On a local news program a few years ago, a woman burned her couch up when she was charging her iPad and blamed Apple. The investigation by the fire department showed that she was not using an Apple charger and she admitted she bought a cheaper one to save money. It’s not worth your life to save a couple of bucks. Buy the branded charger your device came with.
So often I have to tell my friends – Don’t buy the cheap crap…
I feel like I am contantly working against the hard wind (Translating a Swedish expression – don’t know if it works really) (It feels like it will never end) …
– But, they work!
– They cost 2 USD on (cheapo place on the net)
– But Apples cost ten times that…
and so on..
One of them had a wall outlet melting beneath the bed – with a cheap charger in it…. she learned and nowadays only buys “the real thing”
Too bad sometimes even if you think its the real thing, and costs as much, it could be a fake.. especially apple related products.
Burning down the house.