back to article Acer recalls 22,000 over microphone flame out fear

Acer has issued a voluntary product recall notice for 22,000 Acer Aspire notebooks in the US, after it emerged that they could overheat and burn their owners. Or maybe not. The voluntary recall, kicked off in association with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, follows a similar European recall back in October. …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    >they all have 13.3 inch screens

    Is that man inches, bi inches or woman inches?

    Also, for the women, what colour are they?

  2. Wize

    How much power are they using in their microphones?

    I didn't think they used that much juice.

    1. Z80

      @Wize

      It's the short circuit that's drawing all the power not the microphone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        letters and/or digits

        The only power in the microphone circuit should be the tiny fluctuating voltage generated by the microphones transducer when you speak. There would never under any circumstances be enough current to melt plastic, or heat the wire up at all.

        I can't even imagine how they would mess up a simple circuit like that so that it could short out and overheat. It just doesn't seem possible. Seems more likely to be a fault with the preamp or something... but even so... drawing enough energy to melt the laptop case would run the battery down pretty frickin fast. And the microphone would not work. You'd think someone would notice those things.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          Mic Voltage

          Cards using the SB standard provide a 5v supply on pin2 - that's why many (mono) PC mics seem to have a stereo jack.

          1. heyrick Silver badge

            Two thoughts...

            Be careful with using the FAIL icon...

            Surely this is referring to an internal microphone?

        2. Stratman

          ttile

          A capacitor microphone needs a polarising voltage to work, and a lappy may well have one as a small capacitor mic would be cheaper than a small moving coil one. If thisvoltage is taken straight from a power rail then a short circuit could indeed cause 'slight melting'.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Par for the course

    Acer really do make piss poor quality items.

    The amount of acer laptops with dodgy charging circuitry is just not funny.

  4. Ascylto
    Alert

    Hey ... sir!

    You pays your money ... you gets your fire.

  5. JC 2
    Alert

    Overblown

    Pics or it didn't happen.

    A slight melting is a far different thing than meltED plastic. If the wire were to get really hot you'd smell the insulation burning off, notice the palm rest was really warm long before you'd left your hands on it for a period lengthy enough to get burned, and as the article mentioned nobody has been.

    On the other hand it's nice to see a company ordering a recall before people do actually get hurt, too often the bottom line is will the cost of a recall be lower than bodily harm lawsuits and that is a bad PR move these days with urban myths entrenched in every other forum, let alone the truths of product failures.

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