Got a laptop?

Those who own a laptop, please raise your hands. LOL. I have read like about three laptops exploding in past few months. Scared me really. I own a Laptop too, Compaq Presario 2500 and above all that, it has got a Desktop 2.8 Ghz P4 Processor, these chips produce alot of HEAT. To those of you who are wondering where did a Desktop Processor come in a laptop.

It’s all Centrino and Centrino DUO now in laptops. Few years ago, there was no Centrino, they had these Mobile processors, which were costly as compared to Desktop processors, so manufacturers released versions of laptops which had Desktop processors in it, they costed less but the biggest problem with them was “HEAT”. They produced alot of heat. That’s not a very good thing in laptop. Laptop is supposed to be a “LAPTOP”, which can sit on top of your lap. No body can bear their laps burning…

My laptop was a really cheap version as well, it came with a further CHEAP processor from Intel, the Celeron. I got sick of it’s speed after a few months and wanted to update the processor. I contacted Compaq guys, first I was not answered perfectly, then I was told by some local dealer of Compaq in Pakistan that Compaq does not support upgrading in Pakistan. You can get a fast version now instead of upgrading. He said upgrading is available in local market but its going to void your Warranty (as if I did not know!). I decided to take the risk and tried to find out which processors can my laptop run on. Again, Compaq were not really helping me, until I came across a friendly person at Compaq’s Help Center, who e-mailed me a document containing full details of Presario 2500, it listed all possible processors this Laptop could run on. The cheapest in them was the Celeron, then a Intel Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz…Mobile processor could also fit in this machine, but it was way too out of range.

It was a pain for me to find Desktop P4 2.8 Ghz with 512KB L2 cache, because Intel had introduced new types of P4’s which could not fit in my processor. Anyways, I found one atlast. I was risking alot, since three months were left still for it’s One Year Warranty and I was going to void that! So the day it arrived, I did a little operation my self. Opened my laptop with help of service manuals from Internet, replaced the Celeron processor with P4 and voila! It worked perfectly and is working till today masha’Allah! The only problem with it is the “HEAT” it generates, that is what scares me when I read all those laptop exploding stories. My laptop has spent almost 3 years with me now, time passes fast! I hope it runs for a few months MORE now and hope I get approval of buying a new one!

Coming back to exploding laptops, here are few images of the laptops exploding from Engadget , who are mostly the one’s reporting all this. Thanks to them! I don’t know why laptops explode like this with people. It has not happened so much, but just like 4 cases in past months. 3 of them were Dell laptops, the other 1 was I think of Apple.

This is the most recent one

And this one exploded in a Conference causing HAVOC =P

And another one!

Scary, no? Esp. for a laptop owner! I hope this does not happen with anyone. I would not like it to happen to me. If it wants to injure me, it can do that while I am in USA. Hehe. So I sue the manufacturer a few Billion Dollars in court for burning my nice suit and ME. :p

My laptop does run HOT but Almhamdolillah no serious problem that is. I have even allowed laptop to run for more than 24 hours without any break. So its pretty safe insha’Allah. I wonder why all these laptops exploded. If they were some OLD version with a kind of processor generating lot of heat, I would understand but these seem new ones, with “Centrino” in it. They are supposed to run really cool. Perhaps it was the battery’s fault? Manufacturers have “Battery Recalls” in which thousands of batteries are recalled from the users when they discover they might cause a problem. Such recalls have happened in the past. Make sure you check around sites like Neowin and Engadget, they post the news of such recalls.

Happy LapToping!

Pictures & News COURTESY of Engadget.COM

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