Shocking Flaw in Dell’s Power Adapter (P-12)

August 16th, 2007 by Andrew Wells

I recently serviced a Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop. It suffered lightning damage, and as I was looking at the power pack, I noticed something quote dangerous that could shock an unsuspecting victim.

Have a look at the pics I took of the power pack below:

Power Pack 1 Power Pack 2 Power Pack 3

Picture #2 shows the cord to be concerned about. Normally, it is connected to the power pack like it is in picture #1, but if you disconnect it from the pack, you would notice that you have a male to male cord - that’s bad. If you take that cord alone, and plug that into a wall outlet, that other end will become live and any contact with that live end will result in a nice jolt. I have no problems with Dell in general, but it looks like somebody screwed up when this was in production.

One Response to “Shocking Flaw in Dell’s Power Adapter (P-12)”

  1. ratbottom Says:

    dude. it suffered lightning damage. The plastic cover must have been blown off. I own the same power adapter, and there is no exposed metal.

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