I have been using the end of this bed as a desk for the last 4 weeks. I put a rug on the end of the bed so as to not dirty it. Hadn't been a problem. Bottom of the laptop never gets hot, only warm at most, maybe 40 degrees C. I was just about to go to sleep with my head at the other end and I smelt toxic smoke. Looked up, fire coming from under my laptop. Acted quickly, threw laptop across the ground, happened to have 10L bottle of water nearby, put out the now soccer-ball size hole racing fire in the bed. Couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe my luck either.
Believe it or not, the laptop still works although the monitor is broken. I went and bought a Desktop Monitor and plugged that in. That's what I'm using now- but resting always on a hard wooden cabinet top instead of my bed.
If you look around the net for "laptop on bed" ou will see very little appreciation of how dangerous it is. Maybe this one time the rug had positioned itself to cover all the bottom vents.
IBM or someone else need do an experiment with this.
Most people die in bed fires from a cigarette butt or heat-blanket catching the bed alight. They don't wake up because the fumes knock them unconscious. I was bloody lucky. That's the thing I hate so much about life - blink your eyes once more and without warning its gone.
UPDATE: Monday 21st Jan
TO the Conspiracy Theorists on the attempted murder of BoringTrash:
All you skeptics who think I tried to frame my own murder, how about this conspiracy theory on the Thinkpad attacking me:
The joos did it!
If any respectable, impartial lab wants to examine the laptop then PLEASE
announce.
I have my theory: I want the lab to investigate whether the joos got into my computer. Others have their theories. Lets test them ALL. I'm not like NIST. I don't just test the theory I WANT concluded. I don't just SELECT evidence for testing and ignore the rest. I don't REFUSE to give up a sample of GROUND ZERO to qualified metallurgists who doubt my conclusions. I'm not WITHHOLDING photographs. I am prepared to fully and transparently answer to all conspiracy theorists.
I didn't realise when I posted this there is a propaganda war between Dell and IBM surrounding fire-hazard laptops.
You can Imagine it now:
Mum is going into the computer store to buy laptop for her daughter. You can see it can't you? "Is this laptop fire-safe? There isn't a chance it could explode and catch fire is there?"
She asks the question because she sees the four letters DELL spotted around. She's on edge. "Could one of those blow up NOW?" Just when we thought the "War on Terror is over"
Thats a second degree burn above. I'm not sure if I woke up because of a foot on fire OR whether I burnt my foot putting out the fire.
UPDATE: 23rd Jan 2008
Since I am still yet to hear back from IBM about this I will publish the email I sent them:
to ibmevoce@br.ibm.com,
date Jan 19, 2008 1:40 AM
subject:my Thinkpad R50e caught on fire and almost killed me!
Attention IBM: Re: Thinkpad R50e notebook caught on fire on my bed almost killing me.
ibmevoce@br.ibm.com
Please see attached photos.
Hi, I thought I should report this as it is obviously one of the most important risks of any manufacturer. I bought a Thinkpad R50e in Sao Paulo and have had it working brilliantly for about 12 months. I now live in RIo De Janeiro. I always fall asleep with this laptop on my bed somewhere. I bought this laptop because I knew they were very robust and designed for jet setting executives.
Last week I had just lay down to sleep and smelt burning rubber. As I jumped up I saw flames coming out from under my laptop. I threw the laptop off the bed and within seconds the fire in the bed had made a hole the size of a soccer ball.
Luckily I had a 10L water bottle nearby and I emptied half of that on the fire in the bed to extinguish it. During this time I burnt my foot and had blisters for a week which are healing up o.k. now. No medical costs. The fumes from the bed caused me to vomit violently all over my bed.
The laptop amazingly still worked but the screen was broken and their is molten plastic around the air vents that are at the front-bottom of the laptop. The molten plastic is only around this small grid of air-vents.
I have some photos of the damage to the bed and the laptop. I decided to buy a cheap desktop monitor and plugged it into the laptop, blindly navigated my way through the log-in and then switched over to Desktop. I am now writing to you on the same laptop.
I realise that you must want to inspect this laptop for future engineering and design considerations. Any "Death by laptop" incident for any manufacturer will obviously hurt sales.
The laptop was sitting in the open-air on the bed. The bed had a cotton-nylon bed-sheet and on top of that sheet at the end of my bed I had placed a rug which was to stop my bed getting dirty as I would work at the end of my bed with the laptop on top of this rug.
Its amazing really how lucky I was considering that I would often go out and leave my laptop on. I had my laptop OS programmed to automatically shut down but this was not always working - I don't know why. Sometimes the laptop would stay on when not being used. But nonetheless I was often at work on it for 8 hours straight on the rug.
I am happy to send the laptop to you for forensic investigation. Notice in the photos that this is the only air-vent on the undercarriage of this laptop and that is where the fire started.
Please advise,
XXXX XXXXX
Rio De Janeiro
UPDATE: 25th Jan
You're not going to believe this: Guess what the itch all over my body is? Well it started around my crutch, then moved up my stomach, then my shoulders, then my arms and back, then my head - at the smae time it was moving down my legs, then on my feet. Guess what it is? FUCKING SCABIES!!!
Guess where I got it from? The "NEW" bed. I gave the landlord R$150 to go get me a new bed. When he came back with a used one I thought, "Oh well, that must be the cost in Brazil". FUCK!!!
And guess where else the scabies have set up camp? I thought it was genital herpes!!! FUCK!!!
http://images.emedicinehealth.com/images/4453/4453-4482-15939-21139.jpg
Its not THAT bad yet. But they are on their way aren't they!!! Set up camp on my dick the parasitic bastards.
So now I had to go buy R$50 bucks worth of scabicides and will have to wash with it for 15 days. And I think its the out-dated, potentially neurotoxic one called Benzoato de Benzila.
UPDATE: When you apply your scabicide all over your body the first time, be prepared for the scabies counter-attack lasting about 5 minutes. The Scabies consider it an act of biological terrorism and retaliate with a campaign of shock and awe as they seem to be burrowing further into your testicles and shaft in order to escape. You will also discover all the hives you didn't know you had as the only pain is coming from exactly where the hives are.
I was still itchy the next night. All over my chest mostly. I don't understand how the scabies, who are said to number from 10-50 on the body at a time normally, make the whole body itch, even in parts they are not present. Maybe there is a chemical they release in the epidermis which helps obscure them from the radar.
I also don't understand why scabies make you itch more at night, even when you are using the total body scabicide and changing bed sheets. What is it about scabies itch and night-time?
