In a followup to the story:
Dell Knew Of Dozen Burned Laptops Before Recall, Records Show
By Edward F. Moltzen, CRN
10:57 AM EDT Wed. Jul. 19, 2006
Page 1 of 2
Dell grappled with apparently severe overheating problems in scores of notebooks for at least two years before it announced a recall of 22,000 notebooks last year, according to a source close to the company.
The source allowed CRN to review documentation of investigations into the notebook problems, and the source said that documentation was supplied to Dell executives.
The evidence, which included photographs of damaged notebooks, came to light in the wake of reports of one Dell notebook exploding in front of cameras during a conference in Japan.
The documentation included detailed evidence, on a notebook-by-notebook basis, of which component areas suffered the brunt of the overheating. The documentation showed the following:
• One notebook was charred black for several inches on the bottom corner of the unit, about one-half inch from the system fan;
• Another notebook with a two-inch hole showing where a section of case had melted away, charred black and brown on the bottom of the unit, on the side, about half-way between the fan and the battery;
• More than a dozen notebooks where an inch or two of casing had melted away in the right-hand corner above the keyboard and just below the LCD;
