I bought an HP Pavilion laptop in August 2007. Up until yesterday I'd had no problems with it, which was refreshing after the ordeals I went through with the Dell notebook I had previously. So yeah, I've been very happy with everything, until late yesterday when I noticed the laptop had started running on battery power despite being plugged in. That made me really nervous, because all the crap I had to wade through with Dell began with a faulty power supply keeping the laptop from charging. But I noticed that the bit that plugged into the wall was very slightly unplugged from the boxy part with the cord that plugs into the laptop. (We've been moving things around a little in our bedroom, so that's understandable.)
So I plugged it back in, and went to double-check the end that was plugged into the laptop itself. As soon as I touched it, though, I started hearing a weird squeaking noise coming from the box-part. That, again, was an issue I had with the cord to my Dell laptop, so I groaned, but I remembered that with my Dell it did that for months before it stopped working, so I figured I didn't need to worry about it right away. I unplugged and re-plugged the end that goes to the computer, and the squeaking stopped.
So I used the laptop for awhile with no issues, went to go eat dinner, came back, opened it up, and the cord caught on fire. As in, where the cord meets the plug that goes into the laptop, the plastic had melted and there was a fire. It didn't just spark, there was a flame, and it probably would've caused a nasty fire if I hadn't yanked the cord (which broke where it was burning, rather than coming out of the laptop).
My laptop is out of warranty. If either the laptop or the cord had just stopped working, sure, I'd have no recourse except buying a new cord. But it *caught on fire*. Sure it was nice enough to wait until I had opened it, but what if the cat had jostled the cord or something while I was out of the room? The house could've burned down! Laptop cords aren't supposed to do that, warranty or no.
I don't really know what to do about this, or how I even feel about this. I feel like maybe I should get a free replacement cord given the situation, but at the same time, even if they WOULD give me a replacement cord, do I really want another of the exact same model that caught on fire? And I mean, I am out of warranty, so maybe they're justified in not replacing it? I don't feel particularly entitled, but it seems like a problem with the product rather than anything I could've done. At the same time, it worked fine for almost two years. So I don't know. This is kind of baffling. What do you guys think?
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