Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the product and return it to the nearest Wal-Mart for a full refund.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Wal-Mart Stores at (800) 925-6278 between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, or visit the firm's Web site at www.walmartstores.com

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is still interested in receiving incident or injury reports that are either directly related to this product recall or involve a different hazard with the same product. Please tell us about it by visiting https://www.cpsc.gov/cgibin/incident.aspx

Those in the U.K are advised to contact ASDA. [CPSC via CNN Money via Engadget]

Notebook vendors usually base their battery numbers off of Japanese tech association Jeita's method, which measures power depletion when the laptop's completely idle and then averages that number with the laptop's life when running a movie file. Sony will be switching to a Jeita “A” standard, which uses only the movie file test's results. Good news for the hapless consumer, I guess, but I'm pretty sure everyone was hoping for something more like “Hey, your battery will in fact last 11 hours and it won't explode on you either!” [PC Authority]

Granted, it's not hard for Dell to roll out a BIOS update that bumps cooling fan RPMs, so it makes sense that they would cover their ass in this way. Although more fan means more noise and less battery life, so the update is not without its costs. Either way, Dell is taking the issue seriously, which makes it seem like the the problem is a little more serious than what Nvidia is saying.

The update is for the following systems: Inspiron 1420, Latitude D630, Latitude D630c, Vostro Notebook 1310, Vostro Notebook 1400, Vostro Notebook 1510, Vostro Notebook 1710, XPS M1330, and XPS M1530

[Direct2Dell via Laptoping]

• The temperature gap with room temp was 22 degrees C. "When designing consumer products, it is common to seek a temperature gap of around 10 degrees C between exhaust and room temperatures," the thermal design expert said. "The 22 degrees C is quite a large gap..."

• The cooling fan was half of desktop PCs—apparently to reduce noise.

• The expert pointed out, "The heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board." The reason for this? Apparently, Microsoft had to downsize the graphics LSI heat sink so that the DVD drive could be placed above it.

• In five minutes after booting up a game, the graphic LSI heat sink temp rose to 70 degrees C. In 15 minutes, the temperature for the microprocessor heat sink stabilized at 58 degrees, but the graphics LSI heat sink reached 80 degrees C. If the room temperature was high (like 35 degrees C), the heat sink could possibly hit 100 degrees C. What's more, if the vents were clogged with dust, the temperature could also increase.

• The console repaired in May 2007 did not have a new heat sink placed in it.
This is bad design. Really, really bad.

Nothing about those bullet points sound good. But what about those new Xbox 360 Elites with added heatsinks? How do those measure up?

[Nikkei via Kotaku]

It is also noted that he isn't the only one dealing with some hot fon problems. A lot of users on the Fon message boards are reporting heating issues, none of which seem to be as extreme as this guys', but nevertheless, a melting router is never a good thing. There is no official work from Fonero, but I would probably suggest disconnecting if the router is getting melty or unusually warm. –Travis Hudson

Yes, his Powerbook Titanium G4 also melted the plastic keyboard and the screen. After much haggling, he got the keyboard and screen replaced, but not the laptop itself. Catch Angus's story after the jump—though if he sent it to us five years ago, we might have been able to help him get a new laptop.

It happened to me too !


About 5 years ago, after saving for ages I bought my very first MAC, a brand spanking new $3500 Powerbook Titanium G4. I closed the screen one night after a long session with my new supergadget, woke up in the morning to find my MAC so hot I could not even touch it, I carefully open the screen with a pair of wooden chopsticks to find the screen warped and the keys melted, amazingly it still worked.


I tried to get it replaced as it was only a few weeks old but TEKSERVE in New York refused, they acted very suspicious and said they had never heard of this happening. After much emailing they only replaced the plastic keyboard and left the warped and damaged screen.


I again sent it back to tekserve pleading for a replacement as there could be "unseen damage" after another week they replaced the screen but refused to replace the MAC for a new one as they had "never seen this happen before" I was forced to settle for the "repairs" and was made to feel "lucky" that they replaced anything at all.


For the last 5 years I had never heard of it happening to anyone else untill seeing your recent article on 25th Jan. Ironically my crippled beloved MAC finally died last week after a short 5year life of illness,crashing and freezing,


Apple did a good job of keeping this one quiet. It could have easily started a fire in my apartment, the problem definately is more widespread than I could ever have imagined.

– Jason Chen

Thanks Angus!

I saw your post about a melted PowerBook. I had one too. About five years ago, I placed my Powerbook G4 on my desk, started up SETI (remember that?), and went to bed. I woke up to the smell of burning plastic. The keys in the center, radiating outward, were completely melted. Amazingly, though the screen was damaged, the computer was still turned on. I unplugged it, and even though the battery was still installed, it shut off. It melted the plastic covering on my desk, and the laptop was too hot to touch for almost half an hour.

Our observations: the keys are melted in a fairly uniform fashion, and if it was an internal heat that caused the keys to melt it wouldn't have melted so nicely. The picture shows that there was no heat focal point from inside the laptop. Also, the included story says this happened while the laptop was closed, but the screen appears to be in perfect condition. Vote below, hit the jump for the e-mail in its entirety and let the discussions begin in the comments section.

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Hi, I took this picture of my roommates g4 2 days ago. We play soccer together and in the morning before going to play he asked me to feel how hot his laptop was getting. It was extremely hot to the touch and I told him they were known for that. When we got back from playing he opened it up to find this (see pic). He took it to the "genius bar" and they told him Ahh the old hair dryer trick. I know for a fact that he didn't do that and I can't even imagine a hairdryer being able to do that. They basically PWN3D him.

–Travis Hudson

Top 5 Strangest MacBook Mods/Projects [TechEBlog]

When James tried the process to reapply the paste, he found it only lowered temperatures by 2 degrees. Not only that, when he opened it up again and accidentally disconnected the heat pipe sensor, he found that it made the fans run all the time, which in turn cooled down the system tremendously. After a while, he got tired of hearing the fans run so reconnected the sensor, which made the temperature spike again.

His analysis, after the jump.

From all this, James deduced that many people accidentally disconnected the sensor when reapplying their paste and thus made their laptop cooler. Apparently, Apple engineers traded heat for not having the fans run all the time, which can be annoying. The solution: Apple's recent firmware update, which users say increased fan usage and decreased temperatures.

How are our MacBook Pro readers faring with the firmware update? Have you seen lower temperatures and louder fan noise? Let us know in the comments or in tips.

Cooling your MacBook Pro may be easier than you think [Ars Technica]

"Thanks Apple, nothing says we love our customers like posting an update, AND NOT TELLING US A SINGLE FREAKING clue what it fixes. Or would that just mean you'd have to admit some of the issues we've been having?"

Apple Fixes Firmware, Leaves Users Confused [Information Week]

The units in question are only in the United States, where the problem occurred on one of the assembly lines Philips uses for the US market. Philips will make house calls to make the repairs to the 12,000 sets in question. The company added that since the materials inside its TV sets are flame retardant, there was no risk of the units bursting into flames. Still, who wants a smoking TV set in their living room?

Philips to fix 12,000 plasma TVs in US [Reuters]

EDIT: I found an easier way to do this. I got a box with no cover and put the power supply on the edges.

That damn brick! I knew it was trouble even before stubbing my toe on the thing. Hopefully it won't catch that cardboard box on fire, which would require a recall and then Microsoft will send me an even bigger brick to play with that has built-in AC. And as long as COD2 is up and running, that will be just fine.

READ THIS!!! Solution to crashes cause... [GameSpot]
Xbox 360 Users Find Novel Workarounds For Early Glitches [TechWeb]