OVERNIGHT CHARGING OF LAPTOPS & CELLPHONES CAUSE FIRE:

Can the habit of using earphones while charging the laptop or going to sleep with the device still on the charger, be fatal? A malfunctioning DC adapter  attached to the power-supply cord can fail, leading to the flow of a 220-volt alternating current into a laptop, thus turning it into a death trap.Or, what if the battery gets overcharged and explodes, spilling lethal chemicals? While cell-phone chargers, kept on charge overnight, have known to explode, no such incident of laptop chargers exploding has been reported in kolkatha or perhaps in the entire country.While police could not say if any such death had occurred in India, two youngsters - one from Rumania and the other from New zeland  - were reportedly electrocuted while using their laptops in 2009. Flavia Boricea, 17, of Romania, died when she tried to plug in her laptop from her bathtub. Police suspected that she either tried to do so with wet hands or the laptop fell into the tub with the power cord still attached. Jason Allan Duke, 15, was electrocuted while listening to music on his laptop. He had reportedly run an extension cord from his home to his yard where he was working on a vehicle."When I read about it, I too was confused," says a hardware expert working in one of Sector-V's best known IT firms. "Even when a laptop adapter, for argument sake, gets heated, it'll hardly cause any damage to the laptop. It is never directly connected to the motherboard or any plastic casing in the laptop. So the damage to a laptop due to a heated adapter is minimal," he said. Only if a heated adapter is close to any combustible material can it cause fire, he said.Another expert, of a Bangalore-based multinational with offices in Sector-V, says short circuit in a laptop can be caused if it affects three areas where there is a circuit - battery, adapter and motherboard. "But when on an idle or stand-by mode, chances of short circuit minimizes for the laptop is barely functional. There have been ample instances when I've forgotten to shut down my laptop and kept it in the bag overnight. Yes, the laptop remains warm but that's all about it," he reasons.A senior IT professional with a city-based laptop manufacturer says, "A short circuit can't be ruled out though it is extremely rare. In that case, first the adapter will be burnt and then if very severe, the laptop. In a laptop, the power section of the mother board - or SMPS - is the first to get damaged. Only this can trigger a fire. But all said, the laptop should be in an active mode when drawing all the 6 volt DC power supply."This widely circulated email forward warns recipients that it may be dangerous to use a laptop computer in bed because of the possibility that the device could overheat and cause a fire. As evidence of this possible danger, the message relates the case of a 25 year old Wisconsin man identified as Arungopalam who died in a house fire on June 4th, 2010. According to the email forward, an investigation into this fire revealed that it was caused by a laptop left on the bed while Arun was sleeping. The message suggests that the cooling fan was unable to stop the computer from overheating because the vents underneath were blocked by its position on the soft bed, thus leading to the fatal fire. Sadly, news reports indicate that a 25 year old man named Arungopalam  died in a June 4th 2010 house fire in the village of Menomonee Falls, in the American state of Wisconsin. The fire started in the basement bedroom of the house. However, at the time of writing, it is still unclear if the fire was actually caused by an overheating laptop as claimed in the message. In response to my query about the fire, the Fire Chief at Menomonee Falls Fire Department explained that the "fire is still under investigation, and the cause is yet to be determined".Thus, the claim in the message that the fire was linked to a laptop computer has not been verified by fire investigators. That said, it should be noted that fires have indeed been caused by laptops left on beds or couches. An August 2009 CBC news reports describes a case in which a Vancouver man died in a fire caused by an overheating laptop.Thus, the claim in the message that the fire was linked to a laptop computer has not been verified by fire investigators said , it should be noted that fires have indeed been caused by laptops left on beds or couches. An August 2009 CBC news reports describes a case in which a Vancouver man died in a fire caused by an overheating laptop.m Copyright © All Rights Reserved.