Dell's 17-inchers packing a jolt?
Dell 9400 owner "ViriiGuy" is a PC repair guy by day, human lightning rod by night. His 17-inch laptop seems just dandy, other than a nasty habit of sending off between 19 and 65 volts of AC out of any screw on the bottom of the laptop. Along with the annoying result of making ViriiGuy "feel like a 9 volt battery" to his wife whenever he's using the laptop, the laptop also fried its own RAM and video card. After getting a replacement 9400 from Dell, along with couple more 9400s he was prepping for clients, VG noticed the exact same shocking dilemma on all three laptops. Reports have also surfaced of similar jolt coming out of a Inspiron 6400, and Dell's 17-inchers are mostly based off the same platform, so other Dell laptops of that size could be at risk as well. The latest word is that VG's own problems were solved by springing for a three-pronged grounded power adapter, but since Dell still hasn't fessed up to the problem, or offered up such adapters for free other than in a few isolated incidents, we thought we'd run this by you Engadget guinea pigs valued readers to see how widespread the problem actually is.
