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Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

en.community.dell.com

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Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#71

Post by wizzard »

ekianjo wrote: post #29

If it were on Apple boards they would have deleted the message I guess, and pretended nothing ever happened :) EDIT: in case people who downvote me don't understand the reference, see yesterday's news regarding Larry Lessig's complaint being censored on Apple forums, apparently for the interest of keeping the forums clean . Wouldn't that kind of "cat piss" complaint fall in the exact same "unhelpful comment" category…

Anyone who downvotes you hasn't tried to use their forums.

I hadn't seen yesterday's news though so here's a link for anyone else interested: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/65338904338/wow-or-from-the-wh...

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#72

Post by frogpelt »

smacktoward wrote: post #21

Fascinating. I was shopping for new sneakers the other day and was shocked at how many people over the last couple of years had reported new pairs of New Balance shoes having exactly the same "smells like cat urine" problem (see: http://ask.metafilter.com/182458/Something-peed-in-my-sneake... , http://reviews.newbalance.com/9328/M990/new-balance-new-bala... , http://www.zappos.com/product/review/7944390/page/1/start/…

I have found that orange-flavored Trident gum and a certain type of evergreen bushes commonly used in landscaping around shopping centers also smell like cat urine from a short distance.

Cat urine smell is such a pervasive entity.

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#73

Post by paddy_m »

donniefitz2 wrote: post #59
whalesalad wrote: post #17

Reminds me of my sisters Volkswagen beetle. It's got some material under the leather that smells exactly like crayons. It's impossible to get rid of. Not as bad as cat piss but really strong. Gives me a feeling of nostalgia every time I'm in it haha. Google "Volkswagen smells like crayons" and you'll find a lot of VWs in the early 2000s have the same smell.

I used to work on VW's in the early 2000's and VW uses really heavy wax on all of the inner body panels to prevent rust. It's thick and nasty and smells very strong (especially in a hot climate). I used get that stuff all over me and it was tough to wash it off.

There was some type of grease that would ooze out of the drain ports on my fathers 2000 Golf. I never could figure out what it was. was that the same wax?

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#74

Post by novaleaf »

smacktoward wrote: post #21

Fascinating. I was shopping for new sneakers the other day and was shocked at how many people over the last couple of years had reported new pairs of New Balance shoes having exactly the same "smells like cat urine" problem (see: http://ask.metafilter.com/182458/Something-peed-in-my-sneake... , http://reviews.newbalance.com/9328/M990/new-balance-new-bala... , http://www.zappos.com/product/review/7944390/page/1/start/…

my own experience: some air freight allows transfer of pets in the same hold (on top of the freight). I had my boxes pissed on by pets before. This may be a similar issue.

PS: My experience was freight from China to Thailand. And the airline wouldn't compensate because I didn't purchase their insurance.

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#76

Post by frogpelt »

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #39
totalrobe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to sell Volkswagens. This crayon smell is actually common in many German automobiles because the manufacturers fill the doors with wax to help prevent corrosion.

Mmm old Saabs used to have the crayon smell when the glue under the carpets eventually deteriorated. I used to leave a box of crayons in the back to explain it to people. Was quite funny.

Genius. Maybe Dell could ship a cat with every laptop.

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#77

Post by csense »

Maybe this is something that's only smellable by a certain subset of the human population.

I invited a family member to try Chipotle once. She complained of a soapy taste in the food. We both thought maybe a staff member had been careless about rinsing hands after washing with soap.

I later learned that some people have a genetic predisposition to perceive cilantro, an herb common in Mexican food, as a soapy taste [1] [2].

Maybe in the case of these laptops, nobody who was involved in production / QA had the right gene to be bothered by the smell. But once it's sold to thousands of people, that's both a much larger population, and one that's from all over the world (as opposed to the people in the factory who would would probably mostly be local workers from one country or region).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilantro#Leaves

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html?_r=0

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#78

Post by paddy_m »

krenoten wrote: post #31

It's part of a hardening process that has been employed by weapon smiths for time immemorial, known as "quenching". After you form the laptop case / sword / rifle barrel, and it is still hot, it is to be submerged in urine. I'm surprised it's taken laptop manufacturers so long to catch up.

Supposedly BMW did that to their turbo F1 engines in the eighties. They would have a bunch of blocks sitting out in the cold, and they would pee on them to age them. That and welding the cylinder head to the block gave them 1500 hp out of a 1.5 liter engine for one lap.

http://www.autoevolution.com/news/turbocharged-engines-in-fo...

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#79

Post by ekianjo »

Lagged2Death wrote: post #69
ekianjo wrote: post #29

If it were on Apple boards they would have deleted the message I guess, and pretended nothing ever happened :) EDIT: in case people who downvote me don't understand the reference, see yesterday's news regarding Larry Lessig's complaint being censored on Apple forums, apparently for the interest of keeping the forums clean . Wouldn't that kind of "cat piss" complaint fall in the exact same "unhelpful comment" category…

I bought a 2nd-gen iPod Shuffle years ago, like the week it came out. Plugged it in to Windows iTunes and it immediately updated and bricked itself. Apple forums showed several threads and hundreds of posts by other people with the exact same problem over the previous few days. I made a post saying (truthfully) that I had managed to get the iPod working again - by using Winamp. Instead of iTunes. Within hours, all th…

Thanks for sharing. This confirms that this is far from being a new phenomenon, this is really in Apple's DNA.

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#80

Post by joezydeco »

nhebb wrote: post #47
joezydeco wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happens all the time with shady third-party manufacturers in countries other than your own. You get a perfectly nice sample unit that meets all specs and looks beautiful. When the container arrives off the boat with 100,000 production units you find materials have been substituted with cheaper materials, scrap plastic, and scavenged components. Walk into any dollar store and you'll smell something similar to this, ch…

That happened at a former employer of mine. Parts came in covered in chicken shit and straw. Long story short: our main vendor in China outsourced to a make-shift forging operation set up in a barn.

There are other..um...examples out there.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/hairband.asp

http://consumerist.com/2007/05/25/costco-recalls-dirty-under...

http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/n74vq/so_i_bought_a_2...

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