17 ms·

Laptop explodes while charging at Letchworth business

219 points by clumsysmurf 9y ago

simmons 9y ago
> Now Steve wants to warn the public about the dangers of LiPo batteries if left on charge for a substantial amount of time. I've also occasionally heard recommendations from people to not leave devices charging because it may potentially wear out the battery prematurely. This may be a myth. But I always wonder -- why would the charging circuit not moderate the charging and mitigate such risks? Why should I as a user be responsible for providing just the right amount of charging?
- petee 9y ago
  The charger should prevent this, but if it's not designed to fail-safe it could be contributing to the issue...
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    And the battery circuitry should prevent this as well. So even if the charger is faulty there is supposed to be a thermal runaway protection circuit right on top of the battery itself that would cut the power to the battery before something catastrophic would happen. Also, the battery should be given some room to swell in the design.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  Thinkpads can be told to limit charging, say, between 50-70%, but that is a very rare feature.
  - antongribok 9y ago
    You can do this on the Dell XPS series laptops, as well as the (older?) Sony Z-series. I have my Dell set to start battery charge at 75% and stop at 85%.
    - Quenty 9y ago
      The XPS line also tries to detect what to do based on usage patterns. Neat BIOS feature.
  - _trampeltier 9y ago
    All Fujitsu Lifbooks I had in the last 10 years have another setting. They do not start to charge the battery if the are more then about 95% charged. So there is no need to take the battery out while working "on cable power". I often see somehing like "97% full, not charging"
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - lorenzhs 9y ago
    That's a battery longevity feature and not a safety feature, though. Any consumer electronics device should be safe to charge to 100% and be left plugged in.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  That's exactly what charging circuits are supposed to do. I suspect the circuit in this case was damaged or faulty.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Probably faulty, since HP has a laptop battery recall for HP ENVY laptops from 2014. https://www.consumerreports.org/computers-internet/hp-recalls-laptop-batteries/ https://www.consumerreports.org/computers-internet/hp-recall... This is just a good reminder people should keep aware of recalls for products they own, especially ones with batteries.
    - solarkraft 9y ago
      This probably takes HP off the hook. Still, as a consumer, how would one know? Do you have to periodically search yourself for the case one of your products is faulty? This seems hard.
      - exikyut 9y ago
        This immediately made me think of haveibeenpwned. Reading the replies in this subthread, it becomes (somewhat) blindingly obvious that this is an excellent space for a viable startup. - Mobile app (all platforms) that you can carry around with you at all times so when you go "oh! I haven't registered my blah" you can do it in 30 seconds on the spot (or at least start the process) - bam, inertia gone - App works by having you take photos of device(s); it figures out what kind of thing it is, clarifies specs it can't work out from the photo, and tells you where to find the serial number for the given device (and I can't see why you can't take a photo of that too and the app can OCR it) - It partners with hundreds of manufacturers to communicate and electronically sign your registration information - When you move it handles the info update process for you - (Manufacturers that require unambiguity could send you verification emails, and while the app would (obviously) not have access to these emails or the verification clicks, it would know what files had complete/correct/wrong info and be able to call out the action items in the flood of emails you would periodically receive) And obviously, last of all, - When a device is recalled or anything goes wrong with it, you receive recurring app notifications and periodic emails to let you know what's going on - The app has a one-tap flow to allow you to say "I want to return my device" which would kickstart the process of for example the manufacturer mailing you a return box --- This would be hard. Really hard. Stupidly ridiculously hard; the key word here is "vendor compliance". But if you could pull this off, you'd wind up "baked-in" as a part of worldwide industry. You'd be the app everyone used to handle recalls if you got everything right. I don't think this exists yet, at least not in the form I've just described. I constantly see little recall dockets (A4 papers) at my local supermarkets (in Australia). Sometimes there's a photo, sometimes there's only a text description of the product. Everyone's handling this themselves, and duplicating work. This system could provide centralized returns handling both for vendors and consumers. Hmm. This seems like a fun one to take a crack at, and I'm interested enough to have a go. It'd probably take 5 years to get to minimum viability though, FWIW.
- wanderer2323 9y ago
  The short happens inside the battery itself because of the dendrite growth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLUD41f15U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLUD41f15U) By the time it happens, it is generally too late to shut off the charging circuit -- it helps and it happens but the battery destruction is already underway. The question next is whether it will catch fire or simply 'swell up'. At this point it's mostly up to luck, the available fire-prevention mechanisms are stronger battery enclosures, which would be heavy, bulky and expensive -- exactly the things most consumers do not want and would vote against with their money, reducing the profits of the company innovating in this direction. Another way to prevent fires would be attempting to detect dendrite growth by the changes in observable battery state (capacity, amperage, etc). This is hard, expensive and will likely give a lot of false alarms requiring warranty replacement, once again hitting the would-be innovator in their pockets.
  - andrei_says_ 9y ago
    Literally last week I had a conversation with Apple about a swollen laptop battery. They said it’s not a fire hazard but I should replace it and not use the laptop. And, refused to replace it because it was in a “vintage” laptop. Carefully crafted language.
    - a_t48 9y ago
      You should have sat down at one of their tables and plugged it in. :)
    - eumoria 9y ago
      6 months ago is 'vintage' to them. How old was the laptop?
      - shawkinaw 9y ago
        Actually "vintage" has a specific meaning and is at least 5 years after the product is no longer manufactured. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624.
      - 9y ago
- rb808 9y ago
  The other part being the recommendations not to always fully charge Lithium batteries. How come you can't configure the device or charger to do this? its 2018 already.
  - konschubert 9y ago
    I could do that on my Thinkpad.
    - kpil 9y ago
      I liked that feature, especially so for office "luggables" that stays on the desk charging most of the time. That really seems to spare the battery compared to keeping it at 100%. I've replaced the battery in other laptops much more often.
  - kawsper 9y ago
    Some devices does this, if you are on Linux and are using a Thinkpad, you can fetch tp-smapi-dkms or acpi-call-dkms, and run the following: echo 40 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh echo 80 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh Then it will stop charging once it reached 80% and only start charging when it drops below 40%.
    - ssebastianj 9y ago
      I don't know if that it's exclusive on ThinkPads but I love that feature. Now I'm using TLP[0] to re(calibrate) the batteries (main and extra) on a ThinkPad running Linux, it uses "tp-smapi-dkms" or "acpi-call-dkms" behind the scenes. [0] http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-management.html http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-man...
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    My Sony ZX1 sometimes pops up a message when I plug it in "Battery saver: your battery will be fully charged in time for your alarm at 07:00" or something like that; I can charge it faster with an option on the message if I want to. It would be nice if this feature defaulted to charging to 95% or whatever. I usually know in advance if I'll need that extra 5% for a long journey.
- jobigoud 9y ago
  > the dangers of LiPo batteries I think it's Li-Ion batteries in laptops, not LiPo. LiPos have a tendency to degas/explode unexpectedly even when the charger is good. Multicopter/drones use LiPo batteries and there are multiple horror stories of pilots having their house destroyed. We have now learned to store them in special fireproof bags/containers even when not charging, never charge them unattended, always have a fire extinguisher near the charging station, etc. BTW I see a phantom hanging on the wall... Maybe he tried to charge the laptop battery with the LiPo charger?
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    I absolutely loathe the degree to which manufacturers will embed LiPo's into just about everything including wearables without disclosing the fact. If you're clever about this sort of stuff and see a certain form factor coupled with larger than expected operating times you can infer the presence of LiPo's with some accuracy but your average consumer doesn't stand a chance and has no idea what the difference between all these different battery chemistries is in the first place and what the implications are.
    - mmagin 9y ago
      Unfortunately we're getting to the point where there's rarely any choice.
      - isostatic 9y ago
        30 years ago we didn't walk around with half a dozen bombs on our body. As a society we have decided that the benefits outweigh the risk, but it's still easy to not walk around with battery devices in our pockets/bags, or even charging at home. It's not as hard as opting out from cars and the roads, which kill dozens every week in the UK alone.
    - eclipxe 9y ago
      LiPos or Li-Ion?
- kqr 9y ago
  There are two parts involved here: 1) prevent the battery from exploding? This it should do. 2) Prolong battery life? This requires not charging to 100%. I think it's fairly clear why most users don't want their things to stop charging at 75%.
  - bhhaskin 9y ago
    Just change the external scale. 75% is now 100%. Users are none the wiser and battery life is prolonged.
    - tomn 9y ago
      Or maybe they'll buy the competing product that has 25% more runtime, or is 25% thinner, or is 10% cheaper etc.
    - kickopotomus 9y ago
      Most smart battery chargers do this. 0% is not really 0% and 100% is not really 100%.
    - wlesieutre 9y ago
      Then your competitor with the same battery cells says 85% is the new 100% and now they have longer battery life than you do.
      - ericd 9y ago
        And then maybe your competitor gets an announcement on every plane reminding people not to buy their product :-)
        kqr 9y ago
        No, because again, this is not about preventing batteries from exploding. They already shouldn't explode. This is purely to give them a longer lifespan – which is not that attractive to producers, who I assume want to sell more batteries.
- cesarb 9y ago
  > because it may potentially wear out the battery prematurely. This may be a myth. I thought it was a myth too, so when I got my first cell phone, I left it plugged whenever I was home, even when I had used it so little that it was still showing full charge. After a time, however, its battery started to get "fat". I bought a new battery, and since then only plugged the charger when the phone was no longer showing full charge. That battery still works, and is still as "thin" as it was when bought.
  - ihattendorf 9y ago
    Which is anecdotal, the first battery could have just been defective or failed earlier.
  - melq 9y ago
    Sounds like it was a defective battery rather than charging controller. Although depending on how long ago you got your first cell phone, I'm sure a lot has changed.
  - newnewpdro 9y ago
    Batteries are of varying quality and constituent purity, this is not a conclusive observation.
- lopmotr 9y ago
  The user may want the battery charged asap but the intelligent charger might decide that now isn't the time for that and really annoy you. If the battery requires complicated charging and discharging schedule, like old ones that had to be discharged before charging, or periodically, then this has to be controlled by the user because you won't want to wake up one morning and find your charger has intelligently flattened the battery for you, or failed to charge it because it's time to let it drain all the way down.
  - usrusr 9y ago
    A toggle "prepare off-grid use", nothing more complicated than that. You could even try some implicit haptic UI ideas like having two power ports, one for operating (that only charges when the battery is dangerously low) and one for complete charging (that also runs the device, but it's clearly designated as the "charging port"). With USB power delivery that would not even waste case surface, it would be an entirely internal change to make one more USB-C power capable.
- solarkraft 9y ago
  Many charging circuits in larger systems like vehicles do allow setting a limit below the theoretical maximum charge to preserve the battery's health. Options to do this exist in laptops, but mostly just on enterprisey, higher-end models, are not set by default and not very well known.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  >>> ... charging because it may potentially wear out the battery ... It is true that overcharging a battery will do damage, potentially fire-type damage. The issue is that every "device" contains a charge controller to manage this. A laptop should not / will not overcharge its battery. By leaving it plugged in you are relying upon the charge controller to do its job. But remember that we trust such voltage regulators 24/7 in our cars, on our planes, and with nearly every consumer electronic plugged into a wall outlet.
petee 9y ago
> " He only decided to leave it on charge when he unplugged it and it turned off immediately." Sounds like the first warning sign that something was going wrong; if it wasn't dead prior, I would have been wary of keeping it on charge...20/20 I guess
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Indeed. The battery was bad and wouldn't hold charge, but the charging circuitry probably would still try and charge the battery and it eventually, catastrophically failed. Owner is lucky they were not sitting there at the time. If your battery doesn't hold a charge anymore, don't keep it plugged in. There should probably be a PSA for battery handling at this point.
  - detritus 9y ago
    Thanks for this! My partner's laptop has started giving battery-related warnings and I - even as someone vaguely technical - hadn't really considered it might become actively dangerous. If I'm totally honest, I simply and somewhat cynically figured it was a ruse by the manufacturer to bilk some money from us on an unneeded replacement, given its software's likely counting daysSincePurchase!
    - jschwartzi 9y ago
      Modern lithium-ion batteries have a really nice voltage regulator and smart charger embedded within which can estimate cell wear, count charge/discharge cycles, and tell you how much absolute charge is remaining. It's at least possible for the manufacturer to be using this information instead of simply counting the hours.
larrik 9y ago
Wow, with video and everything. This was a lot scarier than I expected.
notafxn 9y ago
That HP laptop has an apple on it.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  No, it does not, that's an HP logo.
  - dllthomas 9y ago
    Right, something like https://brain-images-ssl.cdn.dixons.com/6/3/10169036/u_10169036.jpg https://brain-images-ssl.cdn.dixons.com/6/3/10169036/u_10169...
    - notafxn 9y ago
      Oh, that was stupid :D
- pound 9y ago
  because it's a logo at the center of aluminum lid?
setquk 9y ago
This isn’t really a surprise. Most modern battery tech has a hell of a lot of energy in it which is what we desire to support long run times. It only takes a manufacturing error or some physical damage to let all that out pretty sharpish. This is usually a violent incendiary process on LiPo cells. I doubt the battery in question was overcharged or this was because it was left on charge, but because it was faulty or damaged. This one is a relatively small one: https://youtu.be/bqcX1AjdxSw https://youtu.be/bqcX1AjdxSw
mmagin 9y ago
A fire, not a bomb.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Check the video. It starts off as a fire, then there is a significant bang and pieces spray all over the room.
  - csomar 9y ago
    Indeed. These are very dangerous. The fire itself and the initial explosion if someone was in the room but not at proximity of the laptop. On the other hand, the spray could hurt and do incurable skin damage.
  - dbasedweeb 9y ago
    That’s still deflagration and not detonation. Don’t get me wrong, understand that rapid thermal decomposition of a battery strongly resembles an explosion, but it isn’t one. Scary, dangerous, but only in terms of burns and shrapnel, no shockwave is produced.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      I am fairly sure the distinction is lost on the general public, and I am also fairly sure that to all intents and purposes it will not make a difference. When people plug in a laptop and it goes bang and sprays burning pieces all over the room they will be more than happy to call it an explosion (see title of TFA) even if the scientist in you does not see one. Also, I did not see a barometer in the footage and if expanding gas did not propel those pieces of shrapnel outwards I wonder what did. So maybe there was a shockwave, just not a very large one and that was probably mostly due to the confinement of the battery not being very strong. If there is one way to turn a small bang into a bigger one it is by confining the gas a little longer by using a stronger package.
      - portofcall 9y ago
        First I just want to say that I agree with you, that was an explosion; explosion and detonation aren’t necessarily the same thing. Loud noise and rapidly expanding gas = explosion. One correction though, which is that a shockwave is supersonic, and just judging by the fact that burning fragments were on the floor and not punching through the wall, I’ll guess it wasn’t supersonic. Still an explosion!
wanderer2323 9y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLUD41f15U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLUD41f15U Lithium dendrite growth, the (mostly not understood) cause of the battery catching fire.
AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
I have a Toshiba laptop that has the uptime of an average server. It was part of their Qosmio line, the gaming laptops of their day, and weighed about ten pounds making it difficult to lug, so the thing has pretty much been on and plugged in nonstop since 2010 or so. It reboots maybe once every two months to complete Windows 7 updates. Never had a problem with it. Not sure if batteries are just getting worse or if it's a result of the trend of trying to make things thinner-and-lighter such that there's not room for the battery to expand as it's likely to do over time without exploding.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
Initially I saw an Apple logo and was genuinely surprised, but after realizing it was an HP logo I was much less so. It would be really interesting to see what each company does to protect the health of batteries. I bet there’s a huge difference between them.
- ballenf 9y ago
  Given the age of the laptop, 2014, I would be very surprised if this was the original battery. And, if replaced, surprised if it was not the cheapest option off eBay. OEM batteries are surprisingly difficult to source for many laptops after a few years (sometimes if you don't order it with the laptop upfront, you're sol), not to mention priced 3-5x higher than no-name replacements. That being said, I have bought a lot of no-names over the years and haven't had even so much as an abnormally hot one yet. More often they just perform at 3/4ish capacity of the new "real" one.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Since 2014 HP ENVY batteries were recalled because of risk of fire, I'm gonna go ahead and say it was an OEM battery. ;)
  - jschwartzi 9y ago
    I've stopped buying OEM batteries from anyone but the manufacturer because of the sheer quantity of counterfeits I've gotten off of Amazon.
    - abawany 9y ago
      Agreed, same for eBay. The useless rubbish they push is just insane. I now look for OEM from reputable vendors or Anker if they make it for the device.
- roryisok 9y ago
  I don't know why you would think apple devices are inherently safer. I've had two macbooks and probably seven or eight Windows laptops. The macbooks suffered from swelling batteries, over heating chargers and frayed power cords. The Windows laptops had none of these issues.
jacquesm 9y ago
A friend was the chief fire marshall for a very large (1.8 million inhabitants) European city. At night he would go through all the rooms and unplug each and every charger. He's seen so many fires and has gone to the root cause of them that he sees chargers and batteries as incendiary devices, not consumer electronics. I'll send this video to him, not that he needs more examples but it is quite striking how fast this goes from 'laptop charging on a desk' to 'office on fire' and what little if any warning there was that this was about to happen.
- RangerScience 9y ago
  Then, be extra super wary about any batteries near christmas trees. (Like, if you pick _one_ takeaway from this and change _one_ thing about your life, maybe that one?)
  - Someone1234 9y ago
    That's why artificial christmas trees are legitimately safer. If people insist on a real tree then keep it well watered until you throw it away, the dry trees catch fire easier and faster. I purchased an artificial in no small part for the safety aspect. I do miss the smell though.
    - thaumaturgy 9y ago
      "Easier and faster" is an understatement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u5jCPHmevE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u5jCPHmevE That comparison video was by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, from not long before Trump neutered them (http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/375273-trump-is-decimating-the-consumer-product-safety-commission http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/375273-trump-is-decim...).
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        Even if you expect it the difference is shocking.
      - 9y ago
yborg 9y ago
I don't know if having it off the charger will necessarily prevent issues. I had an old ~2010 Macbook Pro battery pack that stopped taking a charge, but which I decided to keep around because I thought I might see if it was possible to replace the cells. Kind of forgot about it, so it sat on a desktop for maybe a year, and then I tossed it in a closet maybe a year ago. While cleaning in there recently, I found this: https://my.mixtape.moe/kceuko.jpg https://my.mixtape.moe/kceuko.jpg https://my.mixtape.moe/zbvjdu.jpg https://my.mixtape.moe/zbvjdu.jpg It was in a closed ziploc bag, which showed no evidence of high heat, but kind of disturbing in that I assumed after a year of sitting it would have fully discharged.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  After seeing some of the old UPS batteries bulging to the point we had to cut them out of their enclosures, cracking the battery cases, etc., I've generally just classed all batteries as things to get out of the house/business as fast as possible after they're out of service.
  - cptskippy 9y ago
    That's scary, I thought most lead acid batteries were vented.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      It's because of plate deformation not because of gas. They are all vented.
    - c3833174 9y ago
      AGM batteries are packed with fiberglass, so when oxide starts building up on the plates because of improper charging or electrolyte drying up they start pushing on the case.
- kec 9y ago
  Deep discharge is actually probably what caused that. In lithium ion batteries, if cell voltage drops too low it can cause chemical changes in the electrolyte which can cause an internal short.
upofadown 9y ago
Looks like my general policy of never charging batteries on something flammable is going to have to be modified to not charging batteries near something flammable. Like, what the heck, there were long jets of burning stuff spurting out of the battery. It was like it was designed to light the place on fire on a failure.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  I was helping my mom deal with her phone that was injured in a crushing accident and treated the damn thing like a hazard (stuck it outside on the driveway in a water resistant container to wait to go to the store the next day). I was quite surprised that the employees didn't think anything of the potential for a damaged battery.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    my 2 cents: they never had to deal with battery venting into fire. when that happens to you once, you don't even think twice about precautions
sanlyx 9y ago
I bet they turned on some chrome://flags ;)
gl00pp 9y ago
IT tech here. I recently had a Dell laptop I unboxed, plugged in CAT5 and power then turned on. Walked away for 5 mins. Came back into my office and smoke was billowing out from the center of the keyboard! I yanked out the power adapter and kicked the fucker into a plastic box and RAN it to the bathroom where I threw it into a sink and waited. It didn't full on combust but the keyboard was melted and so was the bottom. Dell didn't want to hear ANY of it. They immediately wanted it sent to them. Manager made me just send it back without complaining further. They replaced the keys and mobo and SENT THE FUCKER back to use. Still singed an all. I should note that we open 10 or 15 new Latitudes a month. THis was the only firebomb we've had.
solarkraft 9y ago
It's funny that it's an HP (they have a history of over-heating). However, while batteries combusting are never nice, this is hardly an explosion.
- lucb1e 9y ago
  > they have a history of over-heating Do you know of any laptop brand with products <$1k which never had an overheating problem?
lucb1e 9y ago
How often does this happen? This is the first time I've ever heard of it, and apparently it's uncommon enough to make the news and subsequently the HN front page. Not battery fires in general, like I've heard/seen enough Youtube videos about quadcopter LiPos, and the Samsung Note 7 or whatever it was, but laptop batteries specifically. There's enough space to build safety in, and they don't fly around at high speeds like quadcopters. The owner of course gives the advice of always unplugging laptops when you're not there and stuff, but I'd say the same if it was my office which burned down (hindsight bias). It's beneficial for battery makers to be slim on safety margins because then you can squeeze more juice into it, but as far as I know there's still lots of safety features on modern Li-ion/LiPo batteries, and this seems like either a one-in-a-billion or a (factory) defect.
- blattimwind 9y ago
  Most thicker laptops run on 18650 cells, which are mechanically quite resilient. They almost always use unprotected cells with a Uchiya cutoff and a dedicated BMS with some fusing and thermal, voltage and current monitors. No external mechanisms can help with issues originating within a cell (mechanical damage etc.), which methinks is a more common cause of catastrophic failures.
oxymoran 9y ago
I came into work about two weeks ago and my HP laptop felt and smelled like it was on fire(it wasn’t). It wouldn’t turn on though, completely fried. I wonder if something similar would have happened if I hadn’t showed up at that time.
confounded 9y ago
Hm. I’m keen to get an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) so that I can self-host more services from home, but I’m extremely worried about the fire-risk. I’m afraid I know little about battery construction to know whether this is a valid concern, or what specifications/designs to look for. Do any of the battery experts of this thread have any advice?
- pwg 9y ago
  All UPS'es (unless things have changed) use sealed lead-acid batteries. Not the same battery chemistry, so much reduced (if nearly zero) fire risk from a UPS.
  - confounded 9y ago
    Thank you!
  - JonDav 9y ago
    There are some out there, but not at the commercial/industrial level. Like you said, higher risk along with added shipping cost keeps them out of the mainstream. Also the need for lightweight UPS systems for servers is pretty low. One bad thing if a lead battery is involved in a fire is the spreading of lead contamination, that's not cheap to clean up, but it's low probability.
- m4x 9y ago
  I'm not a battery expert, but I have quite a bit of practical experience repairing UPSs. Battery failures are a very common problem, but battery fires are not. The most common failure mode for a lead acid battery is it just stops working. Sometimes some acid leaks out. Compared to lithium based batteries, they are very safe. If you do buy a UPS, get one with a good warranty from a reputable supplier. In my (biased) experience, it's quite common for the internal electronics to fail. The repairs are usually pretty straight forward, but it's easier under warranty :)
  - andreareina 9y ago
    What suppliers can you recommend?
ceautery 9y ago
There's a lot of paper underneath that charging laptop.
- dmix 9y ago
  I also didn't see a sprinkler on the roof go off. I thought that was common in most offices... I could be wrong.
newnewpdro 9y ago
Isn't there slight hint of insurance fraud odor in this story?
dghughes 9y ago
Crap. I have a 2018 HP Envy x360 the battery is very small only 43Wh it seems like it always needs to be charged that just ups the risk.
amelius 9y ago
There are various products that protect against this. Search for "battery explosion fire containment bag"

219 points by clumsysmurf 9y ago

> Now Steve wants to warn the public about the dangers of LiPo batteries if left on charge for a substantial amount of time. I've also occasionally heard recommendations from people to not leave devices charging because it may potentially wear out the battery prematurely. This may be a myth. But I always wonder -- why would the charging circuit not moderate the charging and mitigate such risks? Why should I as a user be responsible for providing just the right amount of charging?

petee 9y ago
The charger should prevent this, but if it's not designed to fail-safe it could be contributing to the issue...
- jacquesm 9y ago
  And the battery circuitry should prevent this as well. So even if the charger is faulty there is supposed to be a thermal runaway protection circuit right on top of the battery itself that would cut the power to the battery before something catastrophic would happen. Also, the battery should be given some room to swell in the design.
pmlnr 9y ago
Thinkpads can be told to limit charging, say, between 50-70%, but that is a very rare feature.
- antongribok 9y ago
  You can do this on the Dell XPS series laptops, as well as the (older?) Sony Z-series. I have my Dell set to start battery charge at 75% and stop at 85%.
  - Quenty 9y ago
    The XPS line also tries to detect what to do based on usage patterns. Neat BIOS feature.
- _trampeltier 9y ago
  All Fujitsu Lifbooks I had in the last 10 years have another setting. They do not start to charge the battery if the are more then about 95% charged. So there is no need to take the battery out while working "on cable power". I often see somehing like "97% full, not charging"
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lorenzhs 9y ago
  That's a battery longevity feature and not a safety feature, though. Any consumer electronics device should be safe to charge to 100% and be left plugged in.
craftyguy 9y ago
That's exactly what charging circuits are supposed to do. I suspect the circuit in this case was damaged or faulty.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Probably faulty, since HP has a laptop battery recall for HP ENVY laptops from 2014. https://www.consumerreports.org/computers-internet/hp-recalls-laptop-batteries/ https://www.consumerreports.org/computers-internet/hp-recall... This is just a good reminder people should keep aware of recalls for products they own, especially ones with batteries.
  - solarkraft 9y ago
    This probably takes HP off the hook. Still, as a consumer, how would one know? Do you have to periodically search yourself for the case one of your products is faulty? This seems hard.
    - exikyut 9y ago
      This immediately made me think of haveibeenpwned. Reading the replies in this subthread, it becomes (somewhat) blindingly obvious that this is an excellent space for a viable startup. - Mobile app (all platforms) that you can carry around with you at all times so when you go "oh! I haven't registered my blah" you can do it in 30 seconds on the spot (or at least start the process) - bam, inertia gone - App works by having you take photos of device(s); it figures out what kind of thing it is, clarifies specs it can't work out from the photo, and tells you where to find the serial number for the given device (and I can't see why you can't take a photo of that too and the app can OCR it) - It partners with hundreds of manufacturers to communicate and electronically sign your registration information - When you move it handles the info update process for you - (Manufacturers that require unambiguity could send you verification emails, and while the app would (obviously) not have access to these emails or the verification clicks, it would know what files had complete/correct/wrong info and be able to call out the action items in the flood of emails you would periodically receive) And obviously, last of all, - When a device is recalled or anything goes wrong with it, you receive recurring app notifications and periodic emails to let you know what's going on - The app has a one-tap flow to allow you to say "I want to return my device" which would kickstart the process of for example the manufacturer mailing you a return box --- This would be hard. Really hard. Stupidly ridiculously hard; the key word here is "vendor compliance". But if you could pull this off, you'd wind up "baked-in" as a part of worldwide industry. You'd be the app everyone used to handle recalls if you got everything right. I don't think this exists yet, at least not in the form I've just described. I constantly see little recall dockets (A4 papers) at my local supermarkets (in Australia). Sometimes there's a photo, sometimes there's only a text description of the product. Everyone's handling this themselves, and duplicating work. This system could provide centralized returns handling both for vendors and consumers. Hmm. This seems like a fun one to take a crack at, and I'm interested enough to have a go. It'd probably take 5 years to get to minimum viability though, FWIW.
wanderer2323 9y ago
The short happens inside the battery itself because of the dendrite growth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLUD41f15U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLUD41f15U) By the time it happens, it is generally too late to shut off the charging circuit -- it helps and it happens but the battery destruction is already underway. The question next is whether it will catch fire or simply 'swell up'. At this point it's mostly up to luck, the available fire-prevention mechanisms are stronger battery enclosures, which would be heavy, bulky and expensive -- exactly the things most consumers do not want and would vote against with their money, reducing the profits of the company innovating in this direction. Another way to prevent fires would be attempting to detect dendrite growth by the changes in observable battery state (capacity, amperage, etc). This is hard, expensive and will likely give a lot of false alarms requiring warranty replacement, once again hitting the would-be innovator in their pockets.
- andrei_says_ 9y ago
  Literally last week I had a conversation with Apple about a swollen laptop battery. They said it’s not a fire hazard but I should replace it and not use the laptop. And, refused to replace it because it was in a “vintage” laptop. Carefully crafted language.
  - a_t48 9y ago
    You should have sat down at one of their tables and plugged it in. :)
  - eumoria 9y ago
    6 months ago is 'vintage' to them. How old was the laptop?
    - shawkinaw 9y ago
      Actually "vintage" has a specific meaning and is at least 5 years after the product is no longer manufactured. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624.
    - 9y ago
rb808 9y ago
The other part being the recommendations not to always fully charge Lithium batteries. How come you can't configure the device or charger to do this? its 2018 already.
- konschubert 9y ago
  I could do that on my Thinkpad.
  - kpil 9y ago
    I liked that feature, especially so for office "luggables" that stays on the desk charging most of the time. That really seems to spare the battery compared to keeping it at 100%. I've replaced the battery in other laptops much more often.
- kawsper 9y ago
  Some devices does this, if you are on Linux and are using a Thinkpad, you can fetch tp-smapi-dkms or acpi-call-dkms, and run the following: echo 40 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh echo 80 | sudo tee /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh Then it will stop charging once it reached 80% and only start charging when it drops below 40%.
  - ssebastianj 9y ago
    I don't know if that it's exclusive on ThinkPads but I love that feature. Now I'm using TLP[0] to re(calibrate) the batteries (main and extra) on a ThinkPad running Linux, it uses "tp-smapi-dkms" or "acpi-call-dkms" behind the scenes. [0] http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-management.html http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-man...
- Symbiote 9y ago
  My Sony ZX1 sometimes pops up a message when I plug it in "Battery saver: your battery will be fully charged in time for your alarm at 07:00" or something like that; I can charge it faster with an option on the message if I want to. It would be nice if this feature defaulted to charging to 95% or whatever. I usually know in advance if I'll need that extra 5% for a long journey.
jobigoud 9y ago
> the dangers of LiPo batteries I think it's Li-Ion batteries in laptops, not LiPo. LiPos have a tendency to degas/explode unexpectedly even when the charger is good. Multicopter/drones use LiPo batteries and there are multiple horror stories of pilots having their house destroyed. We have now learned to store them in special fireproof bags/containers even when not charging, never charge them unattended, always have a fire extinguisher near the charging station, etc. BTW I see a phantom hanging on the wall... Maybe he tried to charge the laptop battery with the LiPo charger?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  I absolutely loathe the degree to which manufacturers will embed LiPo's into just about everything including wearables without disclosing the fact. If you're clever about this sort of stuff and see a certain form factor coupled with larger than expected operating times you can infer the presence of LiPo's with some accuracy but your average consumer doesn't stand a chance and has no idea what the difference between all these different battery chemistries is in the first place and what the implications are.
  - mmagin 9y ago
    Unfortunately we're getting to the point where there's rarely any choice.
    - isostatic 9y ago
      30 years ago we didn't walk around with half a dozen bombs on our body. As a society we have decided that the benefits outweigh the risk, but it's still easy to not walk around with battery devices in our pockets/bags, or even charging at home. It's not as hard as opting out from cars and the roads, which kill dozens every week in the UK alone.
  - eclipxe 9y ago
    LiPos or Li-Ion?
kqr 9y ago
There are two parts involved here: 1) prevent the battery from exploding? This it should do. 2) Prolong battery life? This requires not charging to 100%. I think it's fairly clear why most users don't want their things to stop charging at 75%.
- bhhaskin 9y ago
  Just change the external scale. 75% is now 100%. Users are none the wiser and battery life is prolonged.
  - tomn 9y ago
    Or maybe they'll buy the competing product that has 25% more runtime, or is 25% thinner, or is 10% cheaper etc.
  - kickopotomus 9y ago
    Most smart battery chargers do this. 0% is not really 0% and 100% is not really 100%.
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    Then your competitor with the same battery cells says 85% is the new 100% and now they have longer battery life than you do.
    - ericd 9y ago
      And then maybe your competitor gets an announcement on every plane reminding people not to buy their product :-)
      - kqr 9y ago
        No, because again, this is not about preventing batteries from exploding. They already shouldn't explode. This is purely to give them a longer lifespan – which is not that attractive to producers, who I assume want to sell more batteries.
cesarb 9y ago
> because it may potentially wear out the battery prematurely. This may be a myth. I thought it was a myth too, so when I got my first cell phone, I left it plugged whenever I was home, even when I had used it so little that it was still showing full charge. After a time, however, its battery started to get "fat". I bought a new battery, and since then only plugged the charger when the phone was no longer showing full charge. That battery still works, and is still as "thin" as it was when bought.
- ihattendorf 9y ago
  Which is anecdotal, the first battery could have just been defective or failed earlier.
- melq 9y ago
  Sounds like it was a defective battery rather than charging controller. Although depending on how long ago you got your first cell phone, I'm sure a lot has changed.
- newnewpdro 9y ago
  Batteries are of varying quality and constituent purity, this is not a conclusive observation.
lopmotr 9y ago
The user may want the battery charged asap but the intelligent charger might decide that now isn't the time for that and really annoy you. If the battery requires complicated charging and discharging schedule, like old ones that had to be discharged before charging, or periodically, then this has to be controlled by the user because you won't want to wake up one morning and find your charger has intelligently flattened the battery for you, or failed to charge it because it's time to let it drain all the way down.
- usrusr 9y ago
  A toggle "prepare off-grid use", nothing more complicated than that. You could even try some implicit haptic UI ideas like having two power ports, one for operating (that only charges when the battery is dangerously low) and one for complete charging (that also runs the device, but it's clearly designated as the "charging port"). With USB power delivery that would not even waste case surface, it would be an entirely internal change to make one more USB-C power capable.
solarkraft 9y ago
Many charging circuits in larger systems like vehicles do allow setting a limit below the theoretical maximum charge to preserve the battery's health. Options to do this exist in laptops, but mostly just on enterprisey, higher-end models, are not set by default and not very well known.
sandworm101 9y ago
>>> ... charging because it may potentially wear out the battery ... It is true that overcharging a battery will do damage, potentially fire-type damage. The issue is that every "device" contains a charge controller to manage this. A laptop should not / will not overcharge its battery. By leaving it plugged in you are relying upon the charge controller to do its job. But remember that we trust such voltage regulators 24/7 in our cars, on our planes, and with nearly every consumer electronic plugged into a wall outlet.

petee 9y ago

> " He only decided to leave it on charge when he unplugged it and it turned off immediately." Sounds like the first warning sign that something was going wrong; if it wasn't dead prior, I would have been wary of keeping it on charge...20/20 I guess

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Indeed. The battery was bad and wouldn't hold charge, but the charging circuitry probably would still try and charge the battery and it eventually, catastrophically failed. Owner is lucky they were not sitting there at the time. If your battery doesn't hold a charge anymore, don't keep it plugged in. There should probably be a PSA for battery handling at this point.
- detritus 9y ago
  Thanks for this! My partner's laptop has started giving battery-related warnings and I - even as someone vaguely technical - hadn't really considered it might become actively dangerous. If I'm totally honest, I simply and somewhat cynically figured it was a ruse by the manufacturer to bilk some money from us on an unneeded replacement, given its software's likely counting daysSincePurchase!
  - jschwartzi 9y ago
    Modern lithium-ion batteries have a really nice voltage regulator and smart charger embedded within which can estimate cell wear, count charge/discharge cycles, and tell you how much absolute charge is remaining. It's at least possible for the manufacturer to be using this information instead of simply counting the hours.

larrik 9y ago

Wow, with video and everything. This was a lot scarier than I expected.

notafxn 9y ago

That HP laptop has an apple on it.

pmlnr 9y ago
No, it does not, that's an HP logo.
- dllthomas 9y ago
  Right, something like https://brain-images-ssl.cdn.dixons.com/6/3/10169036/u_10169036.jpg https://brain-images-ssl.cdn.dixons.com/6/3/10169036/u_10169...
  - notafxn 9y ago
    Oh, that was stupid :D
pound 9y ago
because it's a logo at the center of aluminum lid?

setquk 9y ago

This isn’t really a surprise. Most modern battery tech has a hell of a lot of energy in it which is what we desire to support long run times. It only takes a manufacturing error or some physical damage to let all that out pretty sharpish. This is usually a violent incendiary process on LiPo cells. I doubt the battery in question was overcharged or this was because it was left on charge, but because it was faulty or damaged. This one is a relatively small one: https://youtu.be/bqcX1AjdxSw https://youtu.be/bqcX1AjdxSw

mmagin 9y ago

A fire, not a bomb.

jacquesm 9y ago
Check the video. It starts off as a fire, then there is a significant bang and pieces spray all over the room.
- csomar 9y ago
  Indeed. These are very dangerous. The fire itself and the initial explosion if someone was in the room but not at proximity of the laptop. On the other hand, the spray could hurt and do incurable skin damage.
- dbasedweeb 9y ago
  That’s still deflagration and not detonation. Don’t get me wrong, understand that rapid thermal decomposition of a battery strongly resembles an explosion, but it isn’t one. Scary, dangerous, but only in terms of burns and shrapnel, no shockwave is produced.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    I am fairly sure the distinction is lost on the general public, and I am also fairly sure that to all intents and purposes it will not make a difference. When people plug in a laptop and it goes bang and sprays burning pieces all over the room they will be more than happy to call it an explosion (see title of TFA) even if the scientist in you does not see one. Also, I did not see a barometer in the footage and if expanding gas did not propel those pieces of shrapnel outwards I wonder what did. So maybe there was a shockwave, just not a very large one and that was probably mostly due to the confinement of the battery not being very strong. If there is one way to turn a small bang into a bigger one it is by confining the gas a little longer by using a stronger package.
    - portofcall 9y ago
      First I just want to say that I agree with you, that was an explosion; explosion and detonation aren’t necessarily the same thing. Loud noise and rapidly expanding gas = explosion. One correction though, which is that a shockwave is supersonic, and just judging by the fact that burning fragments were on the floor and not punching through the wall, I’ll guess it wasn’t supersonic. Still an explosion!

wanderer2323 9y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLUD41f15U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLUD41f15U Lithium dendrite growth, the (mostly not understood) cause of the battery catching fire.

AdmiralAsshat 9y ago

I have a Toshiba laptop that has the uptime of an average server. It was part of their Qosmio line, the gaming laptops of their day, and weighed about ten pounds making it difficult to lug, so the thing has pretty much been on and plugged in nonstop since 2010 or so. It reboots maybe once every two months to complete Windows 7 updates. Never had a problem with it. Not sure if batteries are just getting worse or if it's a result of the trend of trying to make things thinner-and-lighter such that there's not room for the battery to expand as it's likely to do over time without exploding.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

Initially I saw an Apple logo and was genuinely surprised, but after realizing it was an HP logo I was much less so. It would be really interesting to see what each company does to protect the health of batteries. I bet there’s a huge difference between them.

ballenf 9y ago
Given the age of the laptop, 2014, I would be very surprised if this was the original battery. And, if replaced, surprised if it was not the cheapest option off eBay. OEM batteries are surprisingly difficult to source for many laptops after a few years (sometimes if you don't order it with the laptop upfront, you're sol), not to mention priced 3-5x higher than no-name replacements. That being said, I have bought a lot of no-names over the years and haven't had even so much as an abnormally hot one yet. More often they just perform at 3/4ish capacity of the new "real" one.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Since 2014 HP ENVY batteries were recalled because of risk of fire, I'm gonna go ahead and say it was an OEM battery. ;)
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  I've stopped buying OEM batteries from anyone but the manufacturer because of the sheer quantity of counterfeits I've gotten off of Amazon.
  - abawany 9y ago
    Agreed, same for eBay. The useless rubbish they push is just insane. I now look for OEM from reputable vendors or Anker if they make it for the device.
roryisok 9y ago
I don't know why you would think apple devices are inherently safer. I've had two macbooks and probably seven or eight Windows laptops. The macbooks suffered from swelling batteries, over heating chargers and frayed power cords. The Windows laptops had none of these issues.

jacquesm 9y ago

A friend was the chief fire marshall for a very large (1.8 million inhabitants) European city. At night he would go through all the rooms and unplug each and every charger. He's seen so many fires and has gone to the root cause of them that he sees chargers and batteries as incendiary devices, not consumer electronics. I'll send this video to him, not that he needs more examples but it is quite striking how fast this goes from 'laptop charging on a desk' to 'office on fire' and what little if any warning there was that this was about to happen.

RangerScience 9y ago
Then, be extra super wary about any batteries near christmas trees. (Like, if you pick _one_ takeaway from this and change _one_ thing about your life, maybe that one?)
- Someone1234 9y ago
  That's why artificial christmas trees are legitimately safer. If people insist on a real tree then keep it well watered until you throw it away, the dry trees catch fire easier and faster. I purchased an artificial in no small part for the safety aspect. I do miss the smell though.
  - thaumaturgy 9y ago
    "Easier and faster" is an understatement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u5jCPHmevE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u5jCPHmevE That comparison video was by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, from not long before Trump neutered them (http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/375273-trump-is-decimating-the-consumer-product-safety-commission http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/375273-trump-is-decim...).
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Even if you expect it the difference is shocking.
    - 9y ago

yborg 9y ago

I don't know if having it off the charger will necessarily prevent issues. I had an old ~2010 Macbook Pro battery pack that stopped taking a charge, but which I decided to keep around because I thought I might see if it was possible to replace the cells. Kind of forgot about it, so it sat on a desktop for maybe a year, and then I tossed it in a closet maybe a year ago. While cleaning in there recently, I found this: https://my.mixtape.moe/kceuko.jpg https://my.mixtape.moe/kceuko.jpg https://my.mixtape.moe/zbvjdu.jpg https://my.mixtape.moe/zbvjdu.jpg It was in a closed ziploc bag, which showed no evidence of high heat, but kind of disturbing in that I assumed after a year of sitting it would have fully discharged.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
After seeing some of the old UPS batteries bulging to the point we had to cut them out of their enclosures, cracking the battery cases, etc., I've generally just classed all batteries as things to get out of the house/business as fast as possible after they're out of service.
- cptskippy 9y ago
  That's scary, I thought most lead acid batteries were vented.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    It's because of plate deformation not because of gas. They are all vented.
  - c3833174 9y ago
    AGM batteries are packed with fiberglass, so when oxide starts building up on the plates because of improper charging or electrolyte drying up they start pushing on the case.
kec 9y ago
Deep discharge is actually probably what caused that. In lithium ion batteries, if cell voltage drops too low it can cause chemical changes in the electrolyte which can cause an internal short.

upofadown 9y ago

Looks like my general policy of never charging batteries on something flammable is going to have to be modified to not charging batteries near something flammable. Like, what the heck, there were long jets of burning stuff spurting out of the battery. It was like it was designed to light the place on fire on a failure.

maxerickson 9y ago
I was helping my mom deal with her phone that was injured in a crushing accident and treated the damn thing like a hazard (stuck it outside on the driveway in a water resistant container to wait to go to the store the next day). I was quite surprised that the employees didn't think anything of the potential for a damaged battery.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  my 2 cents: they never had to deal with battery venting into fire. when that happens to you once, you don't even think twice about precautions

sanlyx 9y ago

I bet they turned on some chrome://flags ;)

gl00pp 9y ago

IT tech here. I recently had a Dell laptop I unboxed, plugged in CAT5 and power then turned on. Walked away for 5 mins. Came back into my office and smoke was billowing out from the center of the keyboard! I yanked out the power adapter and kicked the fucker into a plastic box and RAN it to the bathroom where I threw it into a sink and waited. It didn't full on combust but the keyboard was melted and so was the bottom. Dell didn't want to hear ANY of it. They immediately wanted it sent to them. Manager made me just send it back without complaining further. They replaced the keys and mobo and SENT THE FUCKER back to use. Still singed an all. I should note that we open 10 or 15 new Latitudes a month. THis was the only firebomb we've had.

solarkraft 9y ago

It's funny that it's an HP (they have a history of over-heating). However, while batteries combusting are never nice, this is hardly an explosion.

lucb1e 9y ago
> they have a history of over-heating Do you know of any laptop brand with products <$1k which never had an overheating problem?

lucb1e 9y ago

How often does this happen? This is the first time I've ever heard of it, and apparently it's uncommon enough to make the news and subsequently the HN front page. Not battery fires in general, like I've heard/seen enough Youtube videos about quadcopter LiPos, and the Samsung Note 7 or whatever it was, but laptop batteries specifically. There's enough space to build safety in, and they don't fly around at high speeds like quadcopters. The owner of course gives the advice of always unplugging laptops when you're not there and stuff, but I'd say the same if it was my office which burned down (hindsight bias). It's beneficial for battery makers to be slim on safety margins because then you can squeeze more juice into it, but as far as I know there's still lots of safety features on modern Li-ion/LiPo batteries, and this seems like either a one-in-a-billion or a (factory) defect.

blattimwind 9y ago
Most thicker laptops run on 18650 cells, which are mechanically quite resilient. They almost always use unprotected cells with a Uchiya cutoff and a dedicated BMS with some fusing and thermal, voltage and current monitors. No external mechanisms can help with issues originating within a cell (mechanical damage etc.), which methinks is a more common cause of catastrophic failures.

oxymoran 9y ago

I came into work about two weeks ago and my HP laptop felt and smelled like it was on fire(it wasn’t). It wouldn’t turn on though, completely fried. I wonder if something similar would have happened if I hadn’t showed up at that time.

confounded 9y ago

Hm. I’m keen to get an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) so that I can self-host more services from home, but I’m extremely worried about the fire-risk. I’m afraid I know little about battery construction to know whether this is a valid concern, or what specifications/designs to look for. Do any of the battery experts of this thread have any advice?

pwg 9y ago
All UPS'es (unless things have changed) use sealed lead-acid batteries. Not the same battery chemistry, so much reduced (if nearly zero) fire risk from a UPS.
- confounded 9y ago
  Thank you!
- JonDav 9y ago
  There are some out there, but not at the commercial/industrial level. Like you said, higher risk along with added shipping cost keeps them out of the mainstream. Also the need for lightweight UPS systems for servers is pretty low. One bad thing if a lead battery is involved in a fire is the spreading of lead contamination, that's not cheap to clean up, but it's low probability.
m4x 9y ago
I'm not a battery expert, but I have quite a bit of practical experience repairing UPSs. Battery failures are a very common problem, but battery fires are not. The most common failure mode for a lead acid battery is it just stops working. Sometimes some acid leaks out. Compared to lithium based batteries, they are very safe. If you do buy a UPS, get one with a good warranty from a reputable supplier. In my (biased) experience, it's quite common for the internal electronics to fail. The repairs are usually pretty straight forward, but it's easier under warranty :)
- andreareina 9y ago
  What suppliers can you recommend?

ceautery 9y ago

There's a lot of paper underneath that charging laptop.

dmix 9y ago
I also didn't see a sprinkler on the roof go off. I thought that was common in most offices... I could be wrong.

newnewpdro 9y ago

Isn't there slight hint of insurance fraud odor in this story?

dghughes 9y ago

Crap. I have a 2018 HP Envy x360 the battery is very small only 43Wh it seems like it always needs to be charged that just ups the risk.

amelius 9y ago

There are various products that protect against this. Search for "battery explosion fire containment bag"