Explode in your face

Laptop users be careful. Some things might happen when you least expect it.

From: http://news.omy.sg/News/Local%2BNews/Story/OMYStory201010121531-192070.html

膝上电脑床上爆炸３次　吓坏软件工程师！

膝上型电脑放在床上开6小时，突然传出3巨响，连爆炸3次，吓坏软件工程师！

7月17日，阿尼尔（30岁）在蔡厝港住家卧房床上使用膝上型电脑，刚好走开时，突然听到电脑发出噼啪的爆炸声响。他赶紧冲进房，想把电脑移开，但正要伸手过去，整台电脑开始起火燃烧！

阿尼尔昨天受访时仍心有余悸说：“之后，电脑的电池再度爆炸，分裂成五六块弹飞开来，好像子弹速度那么快！”

电池爆飞3米远

“爆炸威力强大，电池爆飞超过3米，冲击力感觉足以刺穿人体、炸死人！”

庆幸的是，他当时并不靠近电脑，所以没被炸伤。

阿尼尔接着在电脑上泼水，以免火势蔓延，然后向警方和民防部队求救。警员及消防员抵达现场后，其中被炸开的一大块电池第三度爆炸，让大家震惊不已。

阿尼尔透露，他两年前购买这台惠普（HP Compact V3000）膝上型电脑，从未发生故障。他已向惠普投诉，公司决定替换新电脑，但他不接受，因为不想再承受电脑日后可能爆炸的风险。

“新电脑不足以弥补我所经历的危险和惊吓，我打算索取赔偿。”

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Generally any kind of electronics, be it computer, mobile phone or your MP3 player, especially battery operated ones, is capable of exploding. The causes are often due to faulty battery or overheating. There are quite a few cases of handphones exploding during battery charging, as well as computers bursting into flames. Laptops are more likely to overheat and catch fire as they cannot dissipate heat as efficiently as desktops.

These electronics are things that we often use in our daily life, and we usually put them close to ourselves. We put handphones in our pockets, earplugs into our ears, and bury our faces in computers. We are too reliant on such essential electronics that we often are not aware of their possible dangers. Even if they do not explode or burst into flames, there is always the invisible harm called "radiation". It is not exactly known how such radiation affects our body, but high levels of radiation can definitely damage our body permanently. Even as you are reading this entry now, the radiation emitting from your computer might be damaging your cells or mutating your genes, albeit slowly and unnoticeably.

You may say "Life is already so stressful, why make ourselves worry about such matters?" or "Everything around us is dangerous and harmful to a certain extent, we don't have to be wary of each and every one of them all the time."

Probably that is the price to pay for the convenience technology brings.

As an advice, when purchasing any kind of electronics or electrical appliances, be mindful of their quality as well. Cheap might not mean safe. Even if your gadget is perfect, it can also be damaged by an inferior multiplug or adapter without safety certification.

From experience, my graphics card caught fire in the CPU before. Fortunately the casing is transparent and I was able to detect it quickly before it could result in any dire consequences that I can't imagine.