PowerBook explodes in London office

Looks more like a Powerbook G4 to me (round power connector, not the rectangular 'magsafe' -- I can identify mac models from pictures, how sad!)

Given that this is a PBG4 -- have you taken Apple up on its offer from a year ago to replace the batteries before they explode?

Let the MAC-o-lites cometh and inflict the wrath of the mac fanboyism. Muhahahaha

;)

an event like this will happen that will cause a major disaster. e.g. in the hold of an aircraft.

I think someone in authority should think about that one.

would be 'Dodgy battery goes up in flames'

On a side note -- that office sure looks like that advertising satire from YT (apple gear all around).

... just to piss off apple fanbois

LOSER!

"I think I'll stick to the IT job and let the professionals deal with the fires."

Maybe he should let professionals deal with the IT equipment, which he should have checked, to see if it was subject to a recall.

Linux would hae kept this from happening

Who cares if it's a MacBook, PowerBook, Sony Vaio or an Alienware leg-warmer.

At the end of the day it's still a fecking laptop with a dodgy battery!

If you're more concerned with what machine it is, you need a reality check! Fancy having this burn a hole through you? I certainly wouldn't!

You have misidentified the type of laptop, as if it really matters. Also, I'm to lazy to read the other posts and see if someone else already pointed that out. Either that, or I'm an Apple fanboi who thinks it really matters. Who else but a fanboi would be able to pick out what type of laptop? I'll tell you who: A noob who spent half an hour looking at pics of the laptops on the internet so he could point out yet another identifying feature, as if that would be helpfull or make him look smart. FYI Apple fanbois, M$ never put a windows logo on an overpriced exploding battery. So much for premium products at a premium price.

Oh dear LORD have mercy on our souls in this time of crisis! A Mac (whateverBook) that DID that???? Where were the angels that put the thing together? Or how is this possible when each one is blessed by the JobMighty????

I'm off to get my sandwich-board out and go to Covent Garden and get as many sinners to repent before the end!!!!

oooooooo I could go on!!! LOL!

So that would be something Apple contacted registered users about then? No, didn't think so.

The only reason a friend of mine found out was because I told her!

Of course since Apple didn't make a fuss she decided it wasn't worth doing; afterall if Apple didn't contact her it couldn't be that important.

*sigh*

That said I'm glad no-one was hurt; it could have been a lot worse!

The truth is coming out! Steve Jobs is satan and his minions of gadgets are actually gateways to hell!

apart of mis-identified piece of hardware, the question is WHEN did it happen??

just sent this to a friend fruit store employee and according to him this story is several years old. there is no claim anywhere in the article that it is a recent event.
so is this resent or is it cheap journalism again?

Didn't they say that their products are hot?

Look, the first guy pointed out that it was not a macbook, so you don't need to keep saying that it is not a macbook. ANYWAY, stop thinking that your input is important because, after all, you are mac fanbois and you have no friends and no one loves you.

I'm the 'Steven' in the article. To address a couple of points.

1) Yes it's a powerbook. I gave the info over the phone to l'Inq and the line was really bad (maybe that explains some of the bad spelling and grammar too...) so maybe they misheard. Once the story was put up I contacted Paul and told him of the mistake and he corrected it. It only read 'macbook' for about 20 minutes.

2) We check kit when recalls are issued, but in this case the laptop arrived with a company that moved into the building a few months ago. It never even occurred to us to check 'new' kit for recalls they might have been subject to in the last 4 years, and I suspect no-one else would either. We will never know if it was a recalled battery, as we won't be able to recover the serial number.

3) It happened yesterday morning.

(judging by the iMac in the first picture.)

I'd be curious to know if it was a legitimate Apple PowerBook battery.

(It's a new computer for them, of course. Apple just announced that they were no longer able to repair the last of the PowerBooks - lack of spare parts, etc.)

learn to read TAnkist it says it happened yesterday in the first sentance of the article

Everyone trying to put across that its a Powerbook and not a macbook must be blind. It clearly says in the title and the explanation that its a Powerbook

Same vintage as mine -- I'd better check the battery serial number against the recall. https://support.apple.com/ibook_powerbook/batteryexchange/main?id=qp

It does beg the question - was the Mac User's Beard in the vicinity of the flames - there are probably reports of a geek with 3rd degree burns and facial hair loss stalking Micro Anvika on Tottenham Court Road yesterday afternoon asking if its repairable.

Due to the current economic climate the consequences could be too horryfing to think about for this beardy - his company may force him to get a Wintel system as a cost saving measure.

There could be reports thereafter of a beardy (now semi beardy) with third degree burns being institutionalized through the sheer stress of this episode both the fire and Wintel lappy being the factors that made this donkey chase the carrot!

He said that he used a whole extinguisher on the damn thing, yet there's no trace of using one in the pictures. A full extinguisher emptied on anything makes a bloody mess, which is not seen in the photos. Also the first picture with the smoking laptop on the table looks suspicious. Did they really stop to take photos at tha time and of every step of the events? Before extinguishing it? Seems a bit fishy to me...

Thank you for proving my point Paul. I personally think Mac's are great products but I know much of a zealous group mac fanboy's are. Have you ever heard of the say "It is better to have been thought a fool then to speak and remove all doubt"..... get it, you should have just stayed quiet about me and just stick to the point of the article. I actually put my comments because I was telling a colleague how insane most mac users are when anyone hell even god himself puts down a mac system even if it has nothing to do with the quality, and I even said "Look you will see more comments made on this article that has nothing to do with anything then an article that actually impacts people." Now that I've proven to him I was right he owes me a few beers, so I have to thank you Paul personally for getting me drunk tonight Cheers, and cheers ;)

So that't how the batteries are arranged.

The batteries are arranged in a simple and organised way like OSX.

It helps the simple users.

Note the panadol on the desk to help the mac user with such tasks as pressing the power on button.

I had my battery replaced at the time as well as two from my work place. Kinda makes you think how many did not bother through not knowing or for any other reason. Subsequently my replacement battery now only keeps its charge for about 30 minutes then suddenly dies so I took it out tonight, just as a precaution :)

It is a MACintosh and it is a noteBOOK. It makes no difference whether Steve Jobs tells you it's called a Macbook or a Powerbook or a Bannana. It's just a laptop that happens to have a Nazi OS installed.

Way to show your ignorance - you thought I'd use a foam or water extinguisher on an electrical/chemical fire? No, I used a CO2 extinguisher, which is gas only (and works by starving the fire of oxygen) and makes no mess as you described. As to the picture taking - all the ones after the fire were taken by me, the one with it smoking was taken by someone else in the office while they were waiting for me to arrive. The whole thing took about 10 minutes from start to finish, and it let out large quantities of smoke 3 times before it caught fire, as subsequent cells blew and the reaction got more violent each time - the 4th cell going caused a small fire, which then caused cells 5 and 6 to go very violently and cause the large fire.

This is very similar to what happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmPm-YV9vdA

Except there was a longer delay between cells going, and the final explosion was much worse.

So what's with all this WinTard small cock syndrome? Certainly puts fanboyism to shame eh kids?

As for...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmPm-YV9vdA

Well do you do expect installing the flagship of BallmerTardness := Viruses, Intruders, Spyware, Trojans & Adware }:

That fire is a much higher quality, and burned FAR better then the previous windows-based machines. Mac truly is superior.

But I thought macs were better than pcs?

Those mac people must be craazy!

panadol and a beer glass on the desk - gees a job

haha, that also why I love the inq:
article AND comments...

keep on the good work

Being a boring engineer and having no particular axe to grind, I have to say this little incident justifies me in my personal policy of always buying laptops with the battery out the back. That way, in a battery self-destruct incident, there is a pretty good chance that the hard drive will survive (because they are usually near the front.)

My concern is with the education levels or lack thereof of security staff and police at places like airports. The way things are at the moment, a burning laptop battery could result in seven bullets through the head. Someone should ask the likes of BAA about this.

whats this with checking your battery serial number online? apple own the hardware, OS and applications. Do you think they could come up with a way of at least once a month dialing home to check whether the current concoction of electronics in their kit has a chance of downing an airbus 380?

@Zlog: You win today's prize for the funniest comment :)

Baked Apple.
Half-baked users.

Why is it Paul that when someone dares to poke some fun at apple users that you automatically assume that I'm a windows user. I freaking hate windows with a massive passion, I use Linux with gnome interface since gnome interface is the closest looking to Mac OS interface. Heck I even use the Avant-Window-Navigator on my gnome desktop just to make it look as close as possible to MacOS. So you not only didn't listen to my last comment saying to stick to the article but you make your self look like an ID10T again. And thanks again for proving my point again.

Cheers

Me thinks thou hast counted to six.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Hand_Grenade_of_Antioch#Usage_instructions

Good thinking Martin!

I suspect a rear-oriented battery also has less chance of injuring the user should things go pear-shaped...

You and your batteries... wait, wut?

That much power is hard to control, yes.

The users, being flawed and full of sin in my sight, have incited my wrath in the form of the exploding battery. The battery and all of its components are holy, therefore, this act was a demonstration of my POWER-book.

I sincerely hope you die in a fire.

Speaking as a firefighter, I can point out that no, a CO2 extinguisher leaves absolutely no residue on whatsoever on what it is your trying to put out (that's why it is to be used in electrical fires) and that (unfortunately) in this case it wouldn't do a rats arse bit of good since the chemical reaction in these batteries makes its own oxidant (it makes enough air from the reaction to let its fuel burn) although its still a good idea to dump the can on it anyway to keep it from spreading.

Would have been a pretty show nonetheless, shame there was no phone handy with vid record.

Didn't anyone think to give a running commentary & pics on Twitter? Get with the action, marketing people!

/Glad everyone's OK, really.

If so will you be selling it on ebay? I think you should, it might make you a lot of money.

"Steve said the PowerBook was three-to-four years old. "We are aware that there was a battery recall several years ago, it is entirely possible that the battery was one of those subject to that recall, but we can't tell now as the battery is now just slag.""

"Duh, we got a recall about these batteries awhile back, but duh, we ignored it. Gee, look what happened."

Here's your pinkslip Steve. What a farfing idiot.

Apple is bad news!

Andy. I cannot tell if you are joking, so I will just say that: There has actually been a recent article, about just that! (airport security thinking of setting new rules for laptop batteries) It might have even been on here, I can't remember!

...& at the sound of POP, Shakin' Stevens appears in a plume of smoke!
(personally I was expecting Arthur Brown)
Wish my office was this exciting ;)

Really it was exploded. It's strange news. I still can't believe it.. I can say beware of everything ariound you..