What an Intersting Turn of Events
by Mike on Apr.28, 2008, under Computer, Dell, Irritated
So, I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of my new system. To help the days pass by, I’ll read up on some of the forums and watch some videos about my soon-to-be laptop wonder. Hmm… that’s interesting… it is known by Dell that many people experience ELECTRICAL SHOCKS while using their laptops. WHAT?!?!?
Yes, apparently because Dell ships their systems with UNGROUNDED, 2-pronged adapters, the laptop’s unfortunate user acts as a grounding strip for the 120 volts of electrical wonder. How nice. But Dell, on their forms, claim that this “tingling sensation” is expected behavior of all 2-pronged devices. That is absolute garbage! You shouldn’t be shocked for surfing the web, listening to your iPod, or scanning pictures of your face with your scanner.
But don’t worry… Dell is conducting a survey so that they can decide IF they want to offer a program for people to PURCHASE safe, 3-pronged adapters to replace the old ones. Nice. We are sending you dangerous electrical marvels, but we will send you safe ones at a “discounted price.” Oh, how nice. Yet the person I talked to today denies that their systems are unsafe, and claims that they had no knowledge of the issue. NICE… you don’t even know about issues posted on your own site!
Needless to say, I promptly canceled my order, thanking them, but graciously declining the chance to be launched 10 feet into the air and being crispy fried before hitting the ground.
So, I will be doing some rethinking. My laptop will become my cheap laptop for taking to classes at college, my Vista machine will become the server, my mac will stay at home…my brother is extatic about that! 
, and I will build a marvelous new machine… I will post specs in a new post.
What a disappointment. I was looking forward to a great new laptop, but I was sorely disappointed. Thanks Dell!
April 29th, 2008 on 1:54 am
yeah… I guess I never even gave two thoughts about why most a lot of laptops only have 2 prongs going into them. Dell isn’t alone on that. In fact… I’ve heard claims of people feeling tingling from their MacBook Pros. Any number of things can cause that and you’ll find that on any laptop with a conductive body.
For the record, though… they aren’t feeding 120V into the computer. It is most likely somewhere between 10-14V… but yeah… if the power brick had something go wrong… it could certainly use the computer (and the user) as a ground at 120V. Not fun, but it is the nature of electronics.
I still recommend you to look at HP, Lenevo, or Apple.
April 29th, 2008 on 6:19 pm
Hello Mike!
yes Dell is really going down in there level of quality
i am a asset Mgr for a large cleveland based company
we are currently eliminating the Dell line of computers for HP laptops and desktops.