Dell laptops give you jolt
DELL IS apparently shipping laptops with a shocking new feature.
According to Cnet, the new Dell XPS M1530 can give you a mild electric shock. Users have also been complaining that when they connect printers and other gizmos to the laptops they get juiced up.
The new Dell can apparently deliver either a gentle tingle or a sudden jolt. There are no cases of people going voom yet.
Cnet has been reporting the problem after several of its hacks were seen leaping around the room swearing. Complaints have been found on other sites too.
It only happens on those laptops with the fancy brushed aluminium finish. Cnet thinks that is caused by the two-pronged connection between the mains lead and the power adaptor.
Dell apparently forgot to put in that vital third pin which means that the beast is not earthed properly.
When the hacks rang up Dell to complain, the outfit offered to replace the plug. However Cnet sniffs that Dell is hardly admitting that it has a problem.
More here. ยต
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Big deal, i've had this on my D630 since the corner of the alloy lid cover peeled the paint a little bit. Its nothing new....
I have a 8 month old Dell laptop and the power adapter plug always gives a flash and pop around the pins whenever I plug it into a socket.
Not exactly unusual. Equipment with just two pins tends to float at the different voltage to earth. Strangly enough, this affects equipment such as Radios, TVs, printers, amplifiers, DVD players amongst others.

It's especially noticable when you have two devices that are floating with respect to earth - as they may be floating at different voltages. Printers are especially suspect devices here, as most consumer printers (IE, those you need to connect directly to a laptop) have such power supplies.
Experiencing the same problem with my 1520. Keeps me awake at night.
I always thought that was an undocumented feature of my M1710!
This problem has been long around with those Fujitsu laptops. I once had a S6220 that gave me a shock whenever I touched any of the exposed metal chassis, even the screws and USB hub casing.

Complaints to my local service centre (I live in Singapore) was futile: They claimed that there was nothing wrong with the design, and that some people may not feel the shock when they touch it. So they refused to replace it for me, citing that all other model and designs of the Fujitsu laptops are like that, due to the 2-pin adaptor without a 3rd pin for grounding purposes.

BTW, the electric current on the metal chassis is large enough to light up a test pen in the dark.

So I brought the case one step higher, to the Asia Pacific Headquarters. The PR manager apologised for the design and sent me a Targus 3-pin power adaptor in replacement of the dinky 2-pin default adaptor.

Problem solved.
A serious company would recall or at least reconize the problem and move his ass fast to resolve it.

Static electricity can also damage internal components.
Dell just posted some information on this over at its blog:

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/01/18/41538.aspx
my macbook pro too gives me little tingle sometimes, even with the 3 prong adapter (2 prong adapter more often though)..
If you want high quality buy a Lenovo or Apple this what you get form dell!
Local hardware stores typically sell a little plastic widget that adds the 3rd prong back in--just stick on the end of the pluggy-innie-dealie (<--technical term) and off you go!