My laptop caught on fire tonight!!! :(

I had my mini laptop on my lap using it and suddenly I see smoke rising from the outlet where you plug it to the lapop to charge!
I quickly unpluged it, and it worked fine, but when I tried to rconnect the plug a little later it started smoking again and no power was going to it I have a half of battery power left to it so I turned it off to save it till I can figure out whats wrong with it. Right now Im on my old lap top that is as slow as molasses!
Only thing I can think of what happened is the connector has been loose lately when Im charging it and I sometimes have to wiggle the cable to get it to continue charging.....could this have fried it?

Laptops have NEVer liked me!!

ooooohhhhh nooooooooooo!!!!!!

Is it an older unit with a Sony battery? They had a BIG problem a few years back with thier laptop batteries catching on fire!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15254251/

Sounds like you need a new charger unit hopefully but I would get it checked out quickly.

When you see smoke in electronics, something is being consumed and will no longer be there. It will burn to its end and be gone. When that happens, even if it's (the device) still apparently working, you're in trouble as something (perhaps safety measures) have dissipated and are gone now. It may be the Sony battery problem, so all you need do is get a better battery?

Otherwise, smoke is a sign of a serious problem. Fail safe devices such as fuses and transorbs work WITHOUT popping, arcing, or smoke. To actually see or smell smoke, something very bad has happened. I'm very sorry! But at this point, don't use it until you find the source of the smoke. If it is the battery, that can overheat and actually catch on fire.....real fire.....raging full on blaze that can catch other things on fire.

As for the loose connector, no - this would not cause the smoking problem.

It (loose connection) COULD cause an arcing and popping problem though as the power connector looses and finds connection, thus electricity arcs over to the connector. But it wouldn’t cause smoke.

Smoke happens when you have continual power and current in such excess that the transport (wire, PCB, chip, battery, etc) can’t handle it and begins to burn from excess heat and power draw. A loose connection has intermittent connection and low current, but a few high voltage spikes as it arcs to make connection. Smoke only happens with a continual high amp current draw, so definitely not a loose connection problem. Something else is wrong there.

Its an ACER that I got less than a year ago....
and it actually is a new connector that I had to buy about 5 or so months ago because the origional power supply just died! See what I mean about laptops not likeing me!
I've been moving around the box it came in with all the paper work in it, for the past year and NOW of couse I can't find it! I hope my husband didn't finally throw it away!

grrrrr

Sorry to hear that Dee. I hope it's not too serious and you'll be able to get it fixed!

Deelady said:

Its an ACER that I got less than a year ago....
and it actually is a new connector that I had to buy about 5 or so months ago because the origional power supply just died! See what I mean about laptops not likeing me!
I've been moving around the box it came in with all the paper work in it, for the past year and NOW of couse I can't find it! I hope my husband didn't finally throw it away!

grrrrr

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Less than a year should be warranty. Good luck.

Here is an article that rates laptops based on problems encountered over the years.



Here is the source. http://gizmodo.com/5406415/laptop-reliability-study-asus-and-toshiba-come-out-on-top

This story came out as I was shopping for a lappy and I used it to make my purchase. I ended up with a toshiba. I love it so far.

I was assuming it would still be under warranty but I can't find the paperwork anywhere, my husband bought it online for me so I'll have to wait to talk to him to see if he has anything for it.

The laptop I'm on right now is a toshiba, I'm sure that its probably just my lack of knowledge on how to upgrade it or delete all the extras it comes with...but its very slow! It took me almost an hour to boot it up and work past all the updates ect. it always wants load .....


And Thanks Barb

Deelady said:

I was assuming it would still be under warranty but I can't find the paperwork anywhere, my husband bought it online for me so I'll have to wait to talk to him to see if he has anything for it.

The laptop I'm on right now is a toshiba, I'm sure that its probably just my lack of knowledge on how to upgrade it or delete all the extras it comes with...but its very slow! It took me almost an hour to boot it up and work past all the updates ect. it always wants load .....


And Thanks Barb

Click to expand...

Many times, if it was purchased online, you can go to your account at the website and find past purchases.

The Toshiba sounds like it was some malware/crapware issues. PM me the errors you are getting and I will try and walk you through them. Please send me the system specs too.

What OS, xp, vista, 7
How much Ram
What Processor

Deelady said:

I had my mini laptop on my lap using it and suddenly I see smoke rising from the outlet where you plug it to the lapop to charge!
I quickly unpluged it, and it worked fine, but when I tried to rconnect the plug a little later it started smoking again and no power was going to it I have a half of battery power left to it so I turned it off to save it till I can figure out whats wrong with it. Right now Im on my old lap top that is as slow as molasses!
Only thing I can think of what happened is the connector has been loose lately when Im charging it and I sometimes have to wiggle the cable to get it to continue charging.....could this have fried it?

Laptops have NEVer liked me!!

Click to expand...

Holy smokes. I've had two Acer laptops -- not minis though. I keep my laptop on my desk, & use a serger plugged into a grounded outlet. My second Acer is used & bought on ebay. Only problem I encountered was the screen going black/dark. Cost me $300 to get a new screen. I bought an extra adapter on ebay, which was supposedly compatible, but it was not. I'm presuming this is the original adapter that came with the mini. Hope you find the sales receipt, & it's still under warrantee.

acyualy it wasnt the origional adapter...that died 5 months after buying the laptop and I had to get a universal one...I didnt bother before trying to contact Acer tech support which I now wish I had because I just got off the phone with them and they supplied me with a Fedex shipping number to ship it to them free of charge and they said that it should be on its way back to me 7-10 days after the receive it, repaired! I was on the phone with them a total of about 50 minutes to an hour but it was worth it if they are willing to take care of the problem free of charge and in a timely manner!
My husband has a regular Acer laptop and has been happy with it, that is why he bought me this one. Hopefully after this issue is fixed I will have no more problems.
Now I just have to go buy a flash drive to save my important stuff before I send it in, just in case.....

Lefty said:

Here is an article that rates laptops based on problems encountered over the years.

Here is the source. http://gizmodo.com/5406415/laptop-reliability-study-asus-and-toshiba-come-out-on-top

This story came out as I was shopping for a lappy and I used it to make my purchase. I ended up with a toshiba. I love it so far.

Click to expand...

My 2 laptops are also Acer machines.

This one that I'm using now has had problems. It crapped out last year. Some of the keys on the keyboard had stopped working, the hard drive had fried (not burn or anything like that) and I was very frustrated and distraught!

Had to send it out to be repaired. I bought it from Staples and also purchased and additional 3-year warranty, so it's still covered by Staples under THEIR warranty.

I had to purchase and install recovery software into it to restore the unit back to the time when it was first bought completely new and everything was fine. I only put it back in use after the newer one that I got late last spring had started acting crappy and and too blasted slow.

So a friend of mine yesterday, had helped me finsh setting up THIS one after it was inactive for a while. Kept the unit plugged in so that the battery would stay charged.

But now the other unit needs a recovery done to restore it back to good operating staus.

So Deelady, I feel for you, and I'm so sorry to hear that you had this problem. Hopefully, your mini laptop pc can be saved and repaired. But I think that you should stop using it until it IS serviced.

And like your self, Deelady, I was also using an old laptop pc that was a loner, and it ran so atrociously slooooow. It was driving me nuts!