17 ms·
Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss
- jacob019 13y ago5 pages of comments, how bizarre. What could possibly go wrong in manufacturing to make electronics smell like cat piss?
- moocowduckquack 13y agoA cat?
- whitehat2k9 13y agoRunning 'cat' too many times.
- joezydeco 13y agoHappens all the time with shady third-party manufacturers in countries other than your own. You get a perfectly nice sample unit that meets all specs and looks beautiful. When the container arrives off the boat with 100,000 production units you find materials have been substituted with cheaper materials, scrap plastic, and scavenged components. Walk into any dollar store and you'll smell something similar to this, cheap plastics off-gassing all kinds of wonderful substances. I picked up a flashlight once that literally smelled of kerosene, probably because that's what the overseas factory used as a plasticizer to get that "rubbery" feel on the handle.
- nitrogen 13y agoYou can get the same smell from the 99 cent set of black soft plastic measuring cups and spoons at Wal-Mart. I'm surprised anybody buys and uses those; no doubt it affects the taste (and possibly safety) of whatever they measure.
- hoi 13y agoYeah, that's why I no longer use US or European manufacturers ... ;)
- nhebb 13y agoThat happened at a former employer of mine. Parts came in covered in chicken shit and straw. Long story short: our main vendor in China outsourced to a make-shift forging operation set up in a barn.
- joezydeco 13y agoThere are other..um...examples out there. http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/hairband.asp http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/hairband.asp http://consumerist.com/2007/05/25/costco-recalls-dirty-underwear-punching-bag/ http://consumerist.com/2007/05/25/costco-recalls-dirty-under... http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/n74vq/so_i_bought_a_20_punching_bag_from_china_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/n74vq/so_i_bought_a_2...
- columbo 13y agoIt's interesting. Bad capacitors (http://news.cnet.com/When-good-capacitors-go-bad/2100-1041_3-5940438.html http://news.cnet.com/When-good-capacitors-go-bad/2100-1041_3...) maybe?
- estebank 13y agoCan't be, burned capacitor smell is extremely sweet, like something strong being baked.
- ajross 13y agoThermoplastic manufacturing is crazy. There's no end of chemical additives used for variant purposes, and substitutes for them for certain usages. Apparently this batch discovered some new chemistry and there was no QA process in place to catch it.
- jsz0 13y agoProbably cost cutting gone wrong. Lots of acidic chemicals are used and they need to be carefully washed off parts or the smell will linger. Many cheap glues/tapes can also carry a strong acidic smell. The comparison to cat urine makes sense since the smell comes from its high acidity.
- b0b0b0b 13y agoI know there's a family of compounds found in wine that can smell like cat urine[1]. If this laptop has a rubberized component, some googling[2] indicates these same compounds may be employed in their manufacture. 1. http://www.wineanorak.com/mercaptansinwine.htm http://www.wineanorak.com/mercaptansinwine.htm 2. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130310034151AAO2Bw5 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130310034151AA...
- beedogs 13y agoIs Dell's assembly line located inside an industrial laundry building by any chance?
- benatkin 13y agoMight it have been made in China from auto scraps?
- evoloution 13y agoFunny, but when I read the first staff comments I thought it was actually a bot responding :) After comment #4 auto-pilot goes offline
- bichiliad 13y agoPart of me wonders whether or not this is some sort of collective joke by Reddit or 4chan or something. Another part of me is not surprised. Dell isn't particularly notorious for their astute QC.
- whalesalad 13y agoThe last time I ordered a Dell product it arrived and would not boot. Did absolutely nothing. Was completely DOA. That put a bad taste in my mouth. Their displays have treated me well though, and their server products are great.
- bichiliad 13y agoI actually quite enjoy their displays as well. But their laptops have been nothing but headaches for me.
- markwakeford 13y agoI had an HP do the exact same thing.
- xerophtye 13y agohmm... That's an excellent idea for a RAID! :P (by the way it is completely real. they eventually found the problem was caused by a manufacturing process)
- ratsimihah 13y agoA fake SaaS that does big data with your garbage and a keyboard that smells like cat piss, we're having so much fun in the tech community!
- nilsbunger 13y agoThis was a fun read. My favorite post: '''When you write that the "problem has been resolved," do you mean that when I open my computer it will no longer smell like a pack of well hydrated feral cats have used it for target practice resolved, or do you mean that you have resolved the mystery of what has caused the problem? Jus' 'asking.'''
- sandGorgon 13y agoThe reply is even more interesting . This is by an official rep. Really impressed by Dell. "As mentioned above, no biological hazard was involved and we do know that a manufacturing process was the root cause. That process was changed which resolved the issue on newly manufactured units. As for everyone out there with a unit that still exhibits the symptoms, we haven't forgotten about you and will make things right. Keep watching this thread and as soon as more info if available, we'll let everyone know."
- fchollet 13y agoDell laptops are assembled by cats. Incontinent cats.
- vpears87 13y agoCats would cost less people to assemble the product. Beef up those margins.
- candydance 13y agoIf they actually do a recall/replacement I'll be extremely impressed.
- jimmywong 13y agoWhat's so impressive? It is just a delaying tactic from June till now. And still no resolution.
- tempestn 13y ago
- joseph_cooney 13y agoYesterday when some apple users said their Macbook battery life had been impacted by the Mavericks upgrade the consensus on HN was that "people blame all kinds of problems on software upgrades". When some Dell users say their laptops smell funny, then Dell has a QA problem.
- rurounijones 13y agoHard to blame software upgrades for urine smells on new laptops. I also think users are probably better at diagnosing "The keyboard smells like piss" than software implications on battery life
- Gigablah 13y ago"The keyboard smells like piss, therefore it's Dell's fault"
- rurounijones 13y agoAs opposed to....
- Gigablah 13y agoFedex? Your cat? I dunno. We don't know if it's a particular batch or all of them uniformly smell like that.
- rurounijones 13y agoMany people reporting the problem so it is not a cat unless it is very well travelled and has a grudge against Dell laptops. It could be that every owner has a cat and they all feel the need to mark dell laptops as their property but that seems unlikely. If you read the comments you will see that they did not all immediately reek but it happened over a few days which rules out a batch getting watered en route since they would stink when removed from box (and probably suffer other problems, Laptops + liquid do not mix) That is even assuming said liquid could even make it to the laptop through all the packaging. It sounds far more like a reaction to hands + chemicals in/on keyboard or maybe chemicals used to create keyboard gradually reacting to heat of laptop. Especially since people have provided links in threads detailing how this can happen. So occam's razor, something in the manufacturing process; even if it is just one batch. AKA Dell's fault.
- whalesalad 13y agoReminds me of my sisters Volkswagen beetle. It's got some material under the leather that smells exactly like crayons. It's impossible to get rid of. Not as bad as cat piss but really strong. Gives me a feeling of nostalgia every time I'm in it haha. Google "Volkswagen smells like crayons" and you'll find a lot of VWs in the early 2000s have the same smell.
- imjared 13y agoA friend in college had one of the new beetles and I always found this hilarious since her aspiration was to be an elementary school teacher. Really strange stuff though.
- benihana 13y agoI had a 2004 BMW that used to smell like that. I was told it was the glue they used in the car's interior. I loved that crayon smell; it wasn't offensive, just odd.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- totalrobe 13y agoI used to sell Volkswagens. This crayon smell is actually common in many German automobiles because the manufacturers fill the doors with wax to help prevent corrosion.
- joyeuse6701 13y agoMmm old Saabs used to have the crayon smell when the glue under the carpets eventually deteriorated. I used to leave a box of crayons in the back to explain it to people. Was quite funny.
- frogpelt 13y agoGenius. Maybe Dell could ship a cat with every laptop.
- smacktoward 13y agoFascinating. I was shopping for new sneakers the other day and was shocked at how many people over the last couple of years had reported new pairs of New Balance shoes having exactly the same "smells like cat urine" problem (see: http://ask.metafilter.com/182458/Something-peed-in-my-sneakers http://ask.metafilter.com/182458/Something-peed-in-my-sneake..., http://reviews.newbalance.com/9328/M990/new-balance-new-balance-990v3-reviews/reviews.htm http://reviews.newbalance.com/9328/M990/new-balance-new-bala..., http://www.zappos.com/product/review/7944390/page/1/start/5 http://www.zappos.com/product/review/7944390/page/1/start/5, or just Google "new balance odor"). The prevailing theory is that it has something to do with the glue they use when assembling the shoe. I wonder if the same glue is hidden in these laptops somewhere...
- tplpnm 13y agoOh my god I had those M990s in black. I thought there was something really wrong with my feet. Thanks for the closure.
- larrys 13y agoHad the same conclusion with regard to carpeting in a commercial property where a small amount of entrance hall carpet was glued down.
- frogpelt 13y agoI have found that orange-flavored Trident gum and a certain type of evergreen bushes commonly used in landscaping around shopping centers also smell like cat urine from a short distance. Cat urine smell is such a pervasive entity.
- linker3000 13y agoThe problem can be fixed by emptying the recycle bin..er..litter tray.
- Alex3917 13y agoFor what it's worth, wine enthusiasts refer to this cat pee smell as 'boxwood' and pay extra for it.
- ars 13y agoDoes cat urine smell different from regular urine?
- pndmnm 13y agoVery much so (ammonia content, for one). See any IPA brewed with a large proportion of Simcoe hops as well.
- xradionut 13y agoYup, it's a dis-stink-tive odor, quite different from human and dog. (Guess who empties the litter boxes in my household.)
- aestra 13y agoOh yeah, it is one of the strongest, most distinctive odors out there. If you've ever smelled it, you'd know it immediately, and it is damn impossible to clean out of anything. Washing fabric in a washing machine that has been peed on by a cat does nothing for the smell.
- stock_toaster 13y agoIf anyone ever asks me what to name their cat, I am now forevermore going to recommend the name "boxwood".
- mmmacbook 13y agoApple Macbooks smelled like body odor in 2005: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/207887 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/207887
- mds 13y agoMy sister's old white Macbook had that problem. I always assumed something melted in it. It definitely has a powerful "armpit" smell when you open it.
- allenpc 13y agoI had this problem with mine and painstakingly removed every key to try to clean things out. Still smells like BO.
- majurg 13y agoYep, at work we were going thru some old powerbooks prepping them for e-waste and the keyboards had that BO smell. Apparently its the glue used in the keyboard, or something like that.
- xerophtye 13y agoAha! To the people who said apple would have removed something like this if it was on their forums :P
- offmango 13y agoI remember that; I seem to recall it being eventually tracked down to a run of keyboards coming from a particular manufacturer that was using bad rubber. I was working at a Mac repair shop at the time, and before they sorted this out, we'd have to give all the replacement keyboards a "smell test" before using them or sending them back as bad parts.
- nicholassmith 13y agoThat's really weird, as every Apple laptop (~6 or so) I've had has the exact same smell, to the point I thought they were scenting them prior to shipment.
- bluedino 13y ago
- ekianjo 13y agoIf it were on Apple boards they would have deleted the message I guess, and pretended nothing ever happened :) EDIT: in case people who downvote me don't understand the reference, see yesterday's news regarding Larry Lessig's complaint being censored on Apple forums, apparently for the interest of keeping the forums clean. Wouldn't that kind of "cat piss" complaint fall in the exact same "unhelpful comment" category ?
- Lagged2Death 13y agoI bought a 2nd-gen iPod Shuffle years ago, like the week it came out. Plugged it in to Windows iTunes and it immediately updated and bricked itself. Apple forums showed several threads and hundreds of posts by other people with the exact same problem over the previous few days. I made a post saying (truthfully) that I had managed to get the iPod working again - by using Winamp. Instead of iTunes. Within hours, all the message threads about that problem had quietly disappeared. I decided to return the iPod.
- ekianjo 13y agoThanks for sharing. This confirms that this is far from being a new phenomenon, this is really in Apple's DNA.
- wizzard 13y agoAnyone who downvotes you hasn't tried to use their forums. I hadn't seen yesterday's news though so here's a link for anyone else interested: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/65338904338/wow-or-from-the-when-apple-became-the-borg-department http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/65338904338/wow-or-from-the-wh...
- petsos 13y agoOr you know is tired of seeing every thread turning to an Apple flame.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- krenoten 13y agoIt's part of a hardening process that has been employed by weapon smiths for time immemorial, known as "quenching". After you form the laptop case / sword / rifle barrel, and it is still hot, it is to be submerged in urine. I'm surprised it's taken laptop manufacturers so long to catch up.
- nuclear_eclipse 13y agoI thought quenching was done with water...
- krenoten 13y agoWater should only be used in extreme situations where no horses, humans, or cats can be coaxed into a milking. Urine has well known properties which it lends to the steel.
- jjoonathan 13y agoWell known properties like smell?
- kabdib 13y agoFor really special stuff, blood of a virgin, during a full moon. Bonus points if it's an equinox, or your country's Maximum Leader's birthday.
- stonemetal 13y agoIt depends on the material. High carbon steel is usually quenched in oil or air. Water quenching may cause it to shatter. Medium carbon steel can be quenched in oil , water, or impure water(typically brine). What you quench with will determine the hardness(and brittleness) of the steel, oil being the softest and brine being the hardest.
- vidarh 13y agoIn the UK there's a TV show called QI ("Quite Interesting"), hosted by Stephen Fry, which likes to dig up "quite interesting" odd "facts" (in quotes, as sometimes they are twisting things quite far) and ask questions about them. Especially things that will get the celebrity panelists to give "obvious" but wrong answers (which they are penalized for). One of their questions years back was "why does the House of Lords smell like wee?" Supposedly it at least used to because stale human urine used to be used in the manufacture of Harris Tweed, which used to be the favoured cloth for suits worn by the peers. Which was not usually a problem, except, supposedly, when it rains, at which point the suit would smell faintly of urine. Gather a few hundred of them together in a room... Here's a thread from the QI forum regarding the topic - the whole thread is quite amusing, but the end contains a fuller description, with their sources: http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=1694&start=0&sid=5efc1aa4ede05c49f8570f6a3fdd6210 http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=1694&start=0&sid=5efc...
- christopherryan 13y agoGOSPEL ARTIST POSES NUDE! Evon Latrail is the author of a children's book "When Mommy Went to Heaven". She wrote/recorded a few songs; "Lord Bless My Enemies. And, even has a song entitled, "Can't You See (Abortion Is Murder). She went Pro-life after having a abortion! Really???? Now here is a photo of her posing in chocolate as a "Swamp Girl". The word Hypocrite is floating around somewhere. This story has made front page news in the local paper. Go to Google or YouTube and search, Evon Latrail.
- analog31 13y ago"Urea, I found it!" -- Apologies to Archimedes
- staringispolite 13y agoSpecifically cat urine, not other urine? I must be thankfully smell-deficient because I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, and I grew up with cats for 20 years
- lostlogin 13y agoWe travels in Italy and our budget was low (6 weeks at $30 euros a day). We stayed at camp grounds most of the time. It was good, except they often had cat colony's nearby. The smell was horrific and traveled a long way. It put me off cats in such a big way that 10ish years later I still don't like them.
- PeterisP 13y ago"Growing up with cats" is a disadvantage in this case - people don't really notice the 'default' environment that they're used to, your nose 'turns off' that specific smell and doesn't record it. My relatives who have cats (especially in the plural) are unable to distuinguish their own items that smell of cat from similar items that don't. It's similar for smoking - nonsmokers can easily identify traces of smoke smell (like, this particular jacket was worn recently to a place where people smoked) that are not noticeable by the smoker itself.
- staringispolite 13y agoThis is a good point, and one I hadn't thought of. But I wasn't smelling cat pee often either. If we had two sets of items, one of which we had some cats pee on, and one of which we had some humans pee on, you think you could sort them into cat/human groups with a high degree of success?
- ceautery 13y agoI've heard of this before with cheap plastics, like "pony beads", for instance. What I really wonder, though, is if this will be forever linked in the consumer collective mind with Dell returning to privately owned status.
- fixxer 13y agoDoes this feature cost extra?
- thehme 13y agoComments are hilarious. Thanks.
- mikekij 13y agoI heard this is a new feature in Win 8.1.
- leejoramo 13y agoIs this in celebration of National Cat Day here in America? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cat_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cat_Day
- csense 13y agoMaybe this is something that's only smellable by a certain subset of the human population. I invited a family member to try Chipotle once. She complained of a soapy taste in the food. We both thought maybe a staff member had been careless about rinsing hands after washing with soap. I later learned that some people have a genetic predisposition to perceive cilantro, an herb common in Mexican food, as a soapy taste [1] [2]. Maybe in the case of these laptops, nobody who was involved in production / QA had the right gene to be bothered by the smell. But once it's sold to thousands of people, that's both a much larger population, and one that's from all over the world (as opposed to the people in the factory who would would probably mostly be local workers from one country or region). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilantro#Leaves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilantro#Leaves [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html?_r=0
- jval 13y agoYeah, I have this too. I went 22 years thinking that people were dropping soap in my meals. I would think 'Damn, do people just accidentally grab the soap bottle instead of the sauce?'. Couldn't figure out how else such a strong taste of soap could be in my mouth. But yeah, turns out it was cilantro.
- gcb1 13y agomost people were i came from associate italian lime to cleaning products, but i think it is mostly because it was so heavily used in such. i love the taste but i cant drink anything with it. it is impossible after I've smelled it.
- xorgar831 13y agoRose water for a long time smelled like a cleaning product to me, Turkish Delight and Rose Lassi I thought had chemicals in them as a result. ;-)
- colanderman 13y ago
- aerlinger 13y agoHopefully this is an issue that can easily be resolved with one of their "critical updates" (funny enough I went to their driver page (http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx) and it shows an error. Maybe they forgot to install the driver that drives their driver page?)
- NiceOneBrah 13y agoThere is only one logical explanation. Hidden meth lab.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- vonskippy 13y agoSo Dell Laptops stink? Hasn't that been common knowledge for at least a decade?
- pekru 13y agoYou owe me a new monitor, I washed it with my coffee! Really, hilarious comments in this thread. Thanks, y'all!
- rsynnott 13y agoIt's a FEATURE. If they didn't want cat urine-scented, they should have opted for the plain 6430, not the u.
- solistice 13y agoProduct Scenting Suffixes as follows: [u] - "urine", [s] - "sock,worn", [bc] - "burned,capacitor", [br] - "burned,resistor", [a] - "asbestos" [m] - "methapetamines", [c] - "cocaine,regular", [cw] - "cocaine,wall street", [cc] - "cocaine,columbian", ...
- bfe 13y agoIt was actually a carefully planned tie-in with Uber's cat delivery promo.
- xerophtye 13y agoI am surprised that people are giving theories here about the cause. Because on page for Dell-Steve reported that the cause is a manufacturing process that they now replaced.
- bredren 13y agoMy Macbook Air smells like pumpkin pie.
- albertyw 13y agoMy guess is that Dell laptops have incorrectly vulcanized rubber. During vulcanization, sulfur compounds are added to rubber to make it more elastic. Cat urine also contains a high amount of sulfur compounds. If Dell's suppliers got the vulcanization process wrong, sulfur could be leeching out of the laptop's rubber components.
- lignuist 13y agoThey are probably totally pissed.
- jbverschoor 13y agoDell littertude
- solomatov 13y agoThis might be caused by polyurethane degradation which happens when the material gets hot.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- svckr 13y agoAhh, memories. Reminds me of when ThinkPads were still made by IBM. We used to call them StinkPads back in the day.
- yiedyie 13y agoDo users have a cat?
- benrapscallion 13y agoThe Rockefeller Smell Study aims to map the genetic basis of some of these psychophysical differences. http://vosshall.rockefeller.edu/smellstudy http://vosshall.rockefeller.edu/smellstudy They have already mapped one such genomic locus that changes perception of androsterone from sweaty/urinous to pleasant/floral. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17873857/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17873857/
- notindexed 13y agoReminds me of my old Dual USB Macbook. Still smells to the point the whole room it's in stinks after all those years. http://lowendmac.com/menagh/06/1019.html http://lowendmac.com/menagh/06/1019.html https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1320241 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1320241
- francinemathews 13y agoI have 5 cats and they occasionally wizz on my clothes when I'm not looking. Next time I get caught unawares and smell like cat piss in public, I'll say I bought a Dell. Thanks Dell!
- sebnukem2 13y agoMy entire house smells like cat piss! I'm not a Dell fan, but I do have a very territorial cat.
- mathiasben 13y agoI work in an enterprise IT shop during the day and we received 300 of these laptops which we are sitting on until Dell comes up with a resolution. It's not a faint odor, or one that only a few people will notice. It's a rudely foul room clearing gag inducing vapor released as the case heats up. We can't hand them out as they are.