My M11x was smoking...

Here is the story. When I was playing Civ4 on the Nvidia card, a not so graphically intense game, the game got noticeably slower after about an hour. Ignoring the sign, I continued to play. An hour later, the most dreadful occurred. Strange sounds were coming from within the laptop and a burnt smell became immediately apparent. Obviously, I immediately forced my laptop to shut-down and unplugged the power.

What seems to be the problem here? The laptop wasn't even hot. The fan was obviously on, because I can hear it, too. Anyone else have this experience? I have had this laptop since March. Is it because I'm using the beta drivers?

edit: the strange sound came from moving around the power cord's plug-in while plugged in. The burnt smell also came from the power cord. Needless to say, I'm 100% positive that the power cord is the main problem.

edit2: can you guys hear a electronic zapping sound coming from the power cord plug after you push it in the laptop with a little force? Just wondering if that's normal.

 

Contact Dell ASAP and get it replaced.

Never heard of it happening before.

I've had my M11x since Feb 2010 and I've been using the Dell beta nVidia driver since the day it was released and have had no problems.

 

Yeah, call alienware (dell) support and replace it. This is not a healthy situation.
DrGoodvibes, like your signature pic

 

definitely a power supply issue, when you plug in your power supply does the green light come or is it off?

 

I would say, don't plug in it and take the battery out, unscrew and open the bottom panel and try to smell where the smoke coming from. This may help you determine where the burn coming from. Maybe bad battery contact, or something slip into the fan?

 

kind of too late lol I seriously doubt the burnt smell is still there. If it happens again, I'll definitely try and see where the smell is coming from. I'm betting all on the faulty power supply. Just going to get that replaced and see what happens.

 

You'll definitely find the burning smell. Burnt plastic smells...basically forever!

 

I figured out where the smell came from. It's the spot where you connect the power supply in. I'm going to dissemble the laptop later today to see if there are more places with the smell. I might also need to get a cooling pad.

 

Call Dell, this is something covered under warranty, you do not want to try and keep or limp by with something that at any moment could erupt in flames.

 

the exact same thing happened to me. dell replaced the power supply the enxt day (it was an electrical type smell, but at the time i couldn't tell if it was coming from the battery or the charger)

the laptop died the next day - random shutdown, then no more turning on

 

On the flip side, before you send it back(if it's under warranty), it's likely that your data on the HD still intact. So back it up and/or wipe it before sending that back.

 

how did your laptop die? damn it, this isn't cool.

ps can you guys hear a electronic zapping sound coming from the power cord plug after you push it in the laptop with a little force? Just wondering if that's normal.

 

Can anyone tell me when do those thing happened? I mean, was it in the 1st year while the warranty still intact?

 

My GPU temperature went as high as 76C while playing Civ4 :O Is that...normal?

edit: after disassembling the laptop, I found an inch worth of dust clustered near the vent -_- that's probably why my entire laptop was overheating. I will test the temperatures tonight.

 

I'd advise anyone with an M11x to blow compressed air into the vents every 1-2 months. I myself was surprised by just how much dust had found its way into my laptop in a relatively short period of time.

 

I always get this impression that, if you don't disassemble the laptop and use compressed air, some of the dust will be blown to other parts of the laptop. I'm always afraid that it could be fatal.

 

I used to disassemble my old laptop by removing the fan/heatsink but found that there wasn't much point. The cooling components are self secured so that dust rarely gets to any other part of the internals. Compressed air blown in through the vents will send dust in only one direction - out of the bottom intake vent.

 

I had the same problem a few days back, same thing happened when I moved my m11x alittle when i was clearing something near it. The notebook switched to battery mode, and after some time, there was an odd smell from the tip of the power plug (to notebook).

Hasn't seen it happen twice. but a peculiar thing would be my power brick has been rather jumpy since the day I got it (Sometimes it just goes off if i moved it alittle). But switching off the switch and back on usually fix it with no adverse effect.

If your worried about it, i would advice you to call dell.

 

Can you guys please contact me via PM? If you are in the US, I'd love to capture your units for failure analysis to see what is going on.

Thanks!

 

jonjonk, Wiggy Fuzz, dobbytheten,

Did you contact erawneila (Brian) via private message with your service tag numbers, address, phone, etc.?

 

This over heating makes me nervous, I am looking into buying one of these but seems like too many issues at this point: Bad hinges, cover hits keypad when closed, new drivers needed (no big deal there), screens with dust behind them that need to be replaced, Optimus issues, and now overheating! Wow, I was looking at getting one of these bad boys, but with all of the trouble listed here, not sure if its worth the problems ? !