STOP typing immediately. You may damage the computer.
Acer America on Thursday recalled more than 200 expensive Predator gaming PCs, because of an overheating problem. It has happened before. It will happen again.
The recall alert was issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which advised owners of the problem systems to stop using them immediately.
Information Week reports that no one is quite sure how it is happening. Huge media files flying around the Internet deal with a great deal of network contention, but Acer Aspera promises a high speed file transfer mechanism that it claims can get the full capacity of the pipe, regardless of underlying network congestion.
CEO Mike Zafirovski said the problem stems from insulation on the computers’ internal wiring, which can become bent and stripped. This can result in the wires overheating while the PCs are in use, posing a burn threat to the users.
Acer has received two reports of the desktops short-circuiting, resulting in melted internal components and external casing, the agency said. The incidents occurred outside the United States and no injuries were reported.
Acer has recalled 215 systems sold through computer and electronics stores from May to December 2008. The PCs, which were made in China, cost between $2,000 and $6,000.
The computer industry is no stranger to recalls, holding the dubious distinction of having the largest recall effort in U.S. history. Millions ofSony (NYSE: SNE) laptop batteries were recalled in 2006 following reports of them bursting into flames and causing some minor injuries. Apple, Dell (Dell), Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Toshiba, and Sony were all forced to recall the batteries, which were still causing problems last October, when computer makers asked customers to return a total of 100,000 units.
Perhaps computers should come with warning signals plastered all over them.