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Smoking may void Applecare Warranty

37 points by anderzole 17y ago

pmjordan 17y ago
Even leaving aside the health issues: I've had the misfortune of diagnosing computer hardware problems in a household of heavy smokers. Computers get dusty and dirty after a while anyway, but cigarette smoke is something else entirely. I have never seen anything like it since. Suffice to say it doesn't do the hardware any favours.
noonespecial 17y ago
As a guy who worked "geeksquad" jobs at small computer repair shops for years, I can completely understand this. The substance that is exhaled by a smoker is one of the queerest substances I've ever encountered. As the computer's fans pull it over the cooling surfaces on the cpu, gpu and psu, it accretes with alarming speed into a think, insulating, yellow sludge that then traps dust and further enhances its insulating properties. Back in the days of the MHz wars, pre-made consumer pc's like compaqs, or Packad-Bells needed all the cooling they could get. If the box was up on the table at head level with the smoker, it took only a few months for the cooling to become inadequate and the cpu to fail from overheating. Sometimes we could dunk them in alcohol overnight (the cpu/heatsink, not the whole box) and they'd work in the morning, often not. We had an official diagnosis CFFCS that we'd write on the form. "Cooling failure from cigarette smoke." Or, yelled from the back "just another case of see-double-ef-see-ess." Don't even get me started on the smell...
- algorias 17y ago
  One more reason to be glad I don't smoke. The fact that smoke damages the internals of a computer isn't obvious at all, I wouldn't ever have thought of it. Thanks for the explanation.
  - billswift 17y ago
    It doesn't actually damage it, it just gunks it up and increases the risk of heat damage if it isn't cleaned periodically. The real thing with the Apple employees I think is they didn't want to mess with cleaning it and whined about it.
karzeem 17y ago
There are two arguments here. One is that a computer's inner workings can be fouled by secondhand smoke. If Apple wants to deny people repairs on that basis, it should say so in the warranty, because for laypeople it's a non-obvious point. The other argument is that repairing a smoker's computer is dangerous to the health of the repairer. If that's true, there are a lot of ways they could mitigate the health risks. (Granted, there are OSHA-ish reasons Apple might not want to get mixed up in doing these repairs, but that takes me back to the fact they should make it plain in the warranty.) Separate point: this is an even better illustration of the dangers of smoking than those blackened lungs they'd show you in grade school.
- oiuytgfhjk 17y ago
  >Granted, there are OSHA-ish reasons Apple might not want to get mixed up in Especially given Apple's current issue with OSHA over the amount of benzene their computers emit
  - yardie 17y ago
    Do you have any evidence of this. My search so far has turned up plenty of links to a Liberation.fr article from an anonymous researcher at one of France's research institutes. And every article is from early 2007. Apple denies it, OSHA isn't checking it, and there isn't a follow up response from anyone quotable. So what is the current issue with OSHA? And where can I find it?
- NikkiA 17y ago
  If Apple are using compressed air to blow dust from components and their workers aren't wearing dust masks, then that's already likely a OSHA violation, whether the dust particulate includes carcinogens is largely a moot point in terms of liability at that point.
- adamc 17y ago
  If it doesn't say so (plainly) in the warranty, there will probably be a class-action lawsuit sooner or later.
texel 17y ago
As a former Mac Genius, this is no surprise. I've seen Power Mac G4 towers so inundated with cigarette smoke that the cooling fans completely siezed and the processor basically melted. The video card looked like a shrinky dink. Not to mention what the smoke does to the clear plastic on some eMacs and iMacs. There's actually an iMac shell at the training facility in Cupertino with a sign that says something along the lines of "Don't smoke- if not for yourself, do it for your iMac"
- nearestneighbor 17y ago
  Shouldn't CPUs shut themselves down when overheated?
  - texel 17y ago
    Yes, I suppose they should... this one didn't though. The thermostat must have malfunctioned too.
  - pmjordan 17y ago
    That's a relatively recent feature. I think as recently as some Pentium 4s, as well as all the pre-K8 AMD CPUs don't have overheating protection. I can't say for PowerPC CPUs.
jsz0 17y ago
Completely valid in extreme cases. It's usually good for consumers if limited warranties exclude preventable damage otherwise everyone is paying a higher average cost per machine to cover warranty service for people who inflict their own liquid or physical damage. Extending that to smoke damage seems reasonable especially if the problem can be traced back to heat. Smoke particulates are incredibly fine and clingy -- they will fill every nook and crevasse of a carefully designed cooling system that doesn't have a big margin of error to start with. It's just a fact of life these days. If you want to smoke (and I do) you have to deal with the consequences.
blahedo 17y ago
A) please don't post links to links to articles. The actual Consumerist article linked at AppleInsider is http://consumerist.com/5408885/smoking-near-apple-computers-creates-biohazard-voids-warranty http://consumerist.com/5408885/smoking-near-apple-computers-... . B) See also HN post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=953467 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=953467 .

37 points by anderzole 17y ago

Even leaving aside the health issues: I've had the misfortune of diagnosing computer hardware problems in a household of heavy smokers. Computers get dusty and dirty after a while anyway, but cigarette smoke is something else entirely. I have never seen anything like it since. Suffice to say it doesn't do the hardware any favours.

noonespecial 17y ago

As a guy who worked "geeksquad" jobs at small computer repair shops for years, I can completely understand this. The substance that is exhaled by a smoker is one of the queerest substances I've ever encountered. As the computer's fans pull it over the cooling surfaces on the cpu, gpu and psu, it accretes with alarming speed into a think, insulating, yellow sludge that then traps dust and further enhances its insulating properties. Back in the days of the MHz wars, pre-made consumer pc's like compaqs, or Packad-Bells needed all the cooling they could get. If the box was up on the table at head level with the smoker, it took only a few months for the cooling to become inadequate and the cpu to fail from overheating. Sometimes we could dunk them in alcohol overnight (the cpu/heatsink, not the whole box) and they'd work in the morning, often not. We had an official diagnosis CFFCS that we'd write on the form. "Cooling failure from cigarette smoke." Or, yelled from the back "just another case of see-double-ef-see-ess." Don't even get me started on the smell...

algorias 17y ago
One more reason to be glad I don't smoke. The fact that smoke damages the internals of a computer isn't obvious at all, I wouldn't ever have thought of it. Thanks for the explanation.
- billswift 17y ago
  It doesn't actually damage it, it just gunks it up and increases the risk of heat damage if it isn't cleaned periodically. The real thing with the Apple employees I think is they didn't want to mess with cleaning it and whined about it.

karzeem 17y ago

There are two arguments here. One is that a computer's inner workings can be fouled by secondhand smoke. If Apple wants to deny people repairs on that basis, it should say so in the warranty, because for laypeople it's a non-obvious point. The other argument is that repairing a smoker's computer is dangerous to the health of the repairer. If that's true, there are a lot of ways they could mitigate the health risks. (Granted, there are OSHA-ish reasons Apple might not want to get mixed up in doing these repairs, but that takes me back to the fact they should make it plain in the warranty.) Separate point: this is an even better illustration of the dangers of smoking than those blackened lungs they'd show you in grade school.

oiuytgfhjk 17y ago
>Granted, there are OSHA-ish reasons Apple might not want to get mixed up in Especially given Apple's current issue with OSHA over the amount of benzene their computers emit
- yardie 17y ago
  Do you have any evidence of this. My search so far has turned up plenty of links to a Liberation.fr article from an anonymous researcher at one of France's research institutes. And every article is from early 2007. Apple denies it, OSHA isn't checking it, and there isn't a follow up response from anyone quotable. So what is the current issue with OSHA? And where can I find it?
NikkiA 17y ago
If Apple are using compressed air to blow dust from components and their workers aren't wearing dust masks, then that's already likely a OSHA violation, whether the dust particulate includes carcinogens is largely a moot point in terms of liability at that point.
adamc 17y ago
If it doesn't say so (plainly) in the warranty, there will probably be a class-action lawsuit sooner or later.

texel 17y ago

As a former Mac Genius, this is no surprise. I've seen Power Mac G4 towers so inundated with cigarette smoke that the cooling fans completely siezed and the processor basically melted. The video card looked like a shrinky dink. Not to mention what the smoke does to the clear plastic on some eMacs and iMacs. There's actually an iMac shell at the training facility in Cupertino with a sign that says something along the lines of "Don't smoke- if not for yourself, do it for your iMac"

nearestneighbor 17y ago
Shouldn't CPUs shut themselves down when overheated?
- texel 17y ago
  Yes, I suppose they should... this one didn't though. The thermostat must have malfunctioned too.
- pmjordan 17y ago
  That's a relatively recent feature. I think as recently as some Pentium 4s, as well as all the pre-K8 AMD CPUs don't have overheating protection. I can't say for PowerPC CPUs.

jsz0 17y ago

Completely valid in extreme cases. It's usually good for consumers if limited warranties exclude preventable damage otherwise everyone is paying a higher average cost per machine to cover warranty service for people who inflict their own liquid or physical damage. Extending that to smoke damage seems reasonable especially if the problem can be traced back to heat. Smoke particulates are incredibly fine and clingy -- they will fill every nook and crevasse of a carefully designed cooling system that doesn't have a big margin of error to start with. It's just a fact of life these days. If you want to smoke (and I do) you have to deal with the consequences.

blahedo 17y ago

A) please don't post links to links to articles. The actual Consumerist article linked at AppleInsider is http://consumerist.com/5408885/smoking-near-apple-computers-creates-biohazard-voids-warranty http://consumerist.com/5408885/smoking-near-apple-computers-... . B) See also HN post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=953467 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=953467 .