Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.
Alan Cox's Thinkpad explodes!
zeniv.linux.org.uk — Even Linux gurus are susceptible to the perils of exploding batteries - last night famed kernel hacker Alan Cox's IBM Thinkpad battery burst into flames and exploded. Follow the link for an in-depth story in Telsa's inimitable style and photos of the laptop's remains.
davearter- 789 diggs
- digg it
- jameswfrost, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6More info on engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/22/another-thinkpad-battery-explodes/
- wibblewibble, on 10/12/2007, -15/+1bleh stupid digg comments being placed in the wrong threads.
- interiot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12"They took out an LCD display four feet away and hit the wall about the same distance. The LCD was about level with the laptop so it would have gone further. The fragments were hot enough they started small fires and melted the carpet. Also btw - note the way the batteries exploded - forward and slightly downward. Not a nice thought if you had one on your lap at the time."
Yowzers. I guess I can understand why they don't want one of these things on a plane. - mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2Looks like an older thinkpad (600 series maybe), probably some generic ebay replacement battery.
- TheLlamaIs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"22nd September 2006. This used to be Alan's laptop, an IBM Thinkpad 600 with third-party batteries we bought separately: ie possibly not IBM's. Last night it exploded."
First line of the article. Thank you for your input mfratt.
- Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -17/+15what difference would the operating system being used by the person make when its a hardware failure as catestrophic as the battery shorting, and exploding?
submission text is imo flamebait for future comments.- wibblewibble, on 10/12/2007, -19/+6Power saving perhaps? Thats programmable and managable by the OS. Seriously, if you look past your zealotry you may see common sense appear.
- Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -17/+17you missed my point. I was taking issue with the "even linux gurus are" part of the submission text. For hardware failures like the battery going up, the operating system is utterly irrelevent
- wibblewibble, on 10/12/2007, -19/+2Uhh isnt hardware controlled by software whether its on the BIOS or OS. There is interfaces for power and battery control that can be controlled by the platform.
- Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21you have once again missed it.
battery fires like this tend to be a PHYSICAL problem with the battery - not the software deciding it wants to be a little warmer. - WackyT, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9I don't think it's up to the OS whether the batteries short out and explode or not.
"Seriously, if you look past your zealotry you may see common sense appear."
Nope. Don't see it. Sorry. - dWhisper, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Phil's right here... the issue with the various batteries are linked to a particular type of cell being used in batteries, not anything to do with platform or OS. I agree with the sentiment, tossing in "even Linux Gurus" into the description was pure sensationalism, and had nothing to do with the problem at hand.
The long-and-short of LiOn technology is that this is always a risk. Far more potential enery is stored per cell then in Ni-Ca batteries, which allows for longer charges and lighter weights. If a cell or casing was to rupture, the effect is fallout. The batteries are designed to contain this, much in the same way a power supply is designed to contain a fire, but the problem with the faulty cells is that they're not containing the rupture.
All manufacturers that use LiOn deal with problems like this in some small scale (on the order of one in a few hundred thousand), but the problem with the various defective batteries is around one in a thousand, which is too much consumer risk. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5Why don't they put bloody heat sensors on laptop batteries!
- trekkie, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5Actually it has a lot to do with the OS because he bought a cheapo knock off battery on eBay and it exploded.
So people too cheap to pay for their operating system can expect their laptops to explode! Brilliant!
Meant to be humor here, just thought it was funny that the first comments on this article aren't about how the title is inaccurate but in fact what OS the guy using it choses to support & run. - lnxaddct, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Phil,
It was a joke.
Wibble,
If a battery is going to explode, it's going to explode. While power saving features might reduce the risk while they are active (and even then it's not necessarily certain that they will help), eventually the laptop will be used at its normal rate for some period of time and explode. The operating system used had little to do with anything, you're giving it too much relevance and arguing a small exception to "the rule". - mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Why don't they put bloody heat sensors on laptop batteries!"
They do, at least recently. I dont know about the 600 series, but both my old T43 and current X60s have them. - tachistoscope, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I have to agree.
What the ***** does linux have to do with a ***** battery?
It's like a backhanded insult to all things not linux - i.e. Windows. - tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah WTF?! "Even Linux gurus" It doesn't make any differerence? My battery will never explode in Windows, Linux, Man OSX, Unix, etc. becuase it's a Nickel metal-Hydride (the only good thing about getting a bottom-of-the-line desktop is it didn't come with Lithium Ion). Seriously, submitter, get your facts straight and don't bash Linux, by saying by attributing a hardware problem to software.
- davearter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Hahaha, some of you people clearly don't realise that the 'even Linux gurus' bit was a joke - I wasn't bashing _any_ OS.
- TheWriteGuy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Um, why is all of this happening now? Are the LiOn batteries that have been out there for a few years now detoriating? (Staring at my notebook suspiciously.)
- greatblackowl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0It's probably always been a problem, but now that Dell and Apple (and maybe others, too?) have recalled some of their computers, it's getting more media time.
- Tilneys, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13If the bloody batteries are physically FAULTY, and we know they are, it must have little or nothing to do with software.
The question is, why haven't Lenovo issued a recall. Now its Chinese it doesn't matter???- wibblewibble, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2What do you think manages the power on the computer? BIOS? OS? ASICs? or a combination of the above?
- 0x0000ff, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1yeah!
- odaen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Regardless, batteries should have measures to make sure they never explode EVER. No matter what firmware/software is on the laptop!
Conisder if it was triggerable by software and someone created a trojan that could potentially trigger an explosion in certain types of batteries. - benjaminhk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Dude RTFA, it was a third party battery.
- wibblewibble, on 10/12/2007, -13/+3So should airplanes, never expload when they crash. EVER.
- odaen, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Try and have a longer memory. This isn't the first battery to explode.
Wibble: Your analogy makes no sense. - wibblewibble, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1"In science and technology, a battery is a device that stores chemical energy and makes it available " so does an airplane fuel tanks in their wings :) If you rupture them (Crash landing) you most likely get a fireball same for LithIon batteries when you mishandle them.
odaen by odaen 42 minutes ago Block/Report this User
Regardless, batteries should have measures to make sure they never explode EVER. No matter what firmware/software is on the laptop!
So, airplanes fuel tanks should NEVER expload EVER. No matter what software is in the cockpit! - tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1OK wibble, I'll take the bait, since I like your spirited defense. If I got a battery and dropped it from 35,000 ft it would explode, just like the airplane. Let's say, however, that the airplane was just running, should the battery explode then (because that's what's happening with these Li-Ions)?
- loureiro97, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That looks very, very scary O_O .
I hope this doesn't become common. - trekkie, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6The title is inaccurate. This was a third party eBay battery that exploded, not a Thinkpad.
- Yoshi39, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If you put a firecracker in a bucket and close the lid (assuming the lid closes tight enough to turn the bucket into shrapnel) would you describe it to your friends as: a)I put a firecracker into a bucket and the firecracker exploded or b)I put a firecracker into a bucket and the bucket exploded into tiny little pieces?
- mbrane, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6I wonder how long it will take Microsoft to work this incident into one of their "Get the facts" campaigns...."Users running Linux have had their computers explode! You'd better buy Vista!..." At this point the Pointy Haired Boss nods wisely..
- Richggs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'd imagine Microsoft are already 'hot' on there trails to copy this new feature..
- wibblewibble, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4So if a battery wont be taken back free in a recall, sell it on eBay :)
I would do the same too. - bi0metric, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2This is probably some apple humper making it happen on purpose to something other then an apple, because they know how crappy apple's are and want to make them not look bad. :P You dumb ass apple humper.
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3bi0metric, your idiotic trollish rants actually make flag564 sound intelligent. Not an easy feat...
Obsessed with Apple much?
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3bi0metric, your idiotic trollish rants actually make flag564 sound intelligent. Not an easy feat...
- tmilam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I really have to wonder why he was using such an old laptop. Was it his main rig?? I checked and it has a 233mhz cpu. You can buy them for ~$100 on ebay. At least no one got hurt.
- symmetry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10He's a linux guru. All he needs is a command line.
- concertina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2$100 used laptop on eBay also means only $100 to shell out when the battery explodes and you need to buy a new one. Or when you accidentally drop it. Or when someone steals it, mistaking it for an expensive piece of hardware.
It's a great idea for many reasons, especially if you're careless or accident prone.
- jgardner150, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ahh... It's a thinkpad, sooo just throw a new battery in it and start it up! lol
- venezian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1lol.. i agree. i pretty much live with thinkpads at work. the first time we got to test them, it was the T42 series and we went outside and threw it up in the air and let it land on concrete, some pieces broke off, but the laptop works to this day. we use it as a back up for sales guys.
now i'm wondering if i should start turning off my laptop. not a thinkpad, but it's a lenovo N100 - zybch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not sure if you should do that.
The probs with apple notebooks exploding all seemed to occur when the machine was turned off (or in standby mode).
Best to probably just remove the battery if you know you're not going to be using it for a while, and pop it in a metak cake tin in the middle of the backyard just in case it 'goes off'.
- venezian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1lol.. i agree. i pretty much live with thinkpads at work. the first time we got to test them, it was the T42 series and we went outside and threw it up in the air and let it land on concrete, some pieces broke off, but the laptop works to this day. we use it as a back up for sales guys.
- baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2these laptop manufactureres better get it together because sooner or later one of these laptops are going to injure a human...
that smokey laptop smells a class action lawsuit... - sumgi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well the article says IBM is investigating and that the remains of the label recovered may point to an original IBM battery though who manufactured that is anyone's guess..*%cough*cough&*SONY^#cough. I have an IBM G40 and it's a good laptop but the battery gets hotter than deathsauce on a jalapeño cheese burger, If I had a girlfriend I might fear for my ability to reproduce.
- Nitron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Last time I checked, there's no ACPI feature to make the battery explode. It isn't a problem with Linux. I personally remove the battery if I'm not using it (and I rarely use it) but then again, I'm also on an old Compaq Armada (400MHz...Blazing fast, huh?)
- skrekkur, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4AHA! Proof that linux and open source is dangerousl!
- wakeborder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2supid h4x0r
- flair1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i know for a fact that some people take old dead laptop batteries and replace the cells and resell the batteries on EBay. So the label looks like a real ThinkPad battery, but the cells inside are not original and they probably have no circuitry to avoid overcharging. If I had to guess, this is the problem.
This was a TP600 which is an absolute ancient laptop (1999 or so) so I don't even think ThinkPad makes new batteries for this model anymore. - nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1What the hell is wrong with these manufacturers? Can you imagine if any other machine in your house just exploded into a ball of fire? No one would every buy one.
- edwardn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Dell didn't learn a few years ago when a house caught fire and a teenage girl died due to the fire started by the laptop.
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2008 —
Content posted by