

Smoking may void Applecare Warranty - anderzole
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/21/smoking_may_void_applecare_warranty.html

======
noonespecial
As a guy who worked "geeksquad" jobs at small computer repair shops for years,
I can completely understand this.

The substance that is exhaled by a smoker is one of the queerest substances
I've ever encountered. As the computer's fans pull it over the cooling
surfaces on the cpu, gpu and psu, it accretes with alarming speed into a
think, insulating, yellow sludge that then traps dust and further enhances its
insulating properties.

Back in the days of the MHz wars, pre-made consumer pc's like compaqs, or
Packad-Bells needed all the cooling they could get. If the box was up on the
table at head level with the smoker, it took only a few months for the cooling
to become inadequate and the cpu to fail from overheating. Sometimes we could
dunk them in alcohol overnight (the cpu/heatsink, not the whole box) and
they'd work in the morning, often not.

We had an official diagnosis CFFCS that we'd write on the form. "Cooling
failure from cigarette smoke." Or, yelled from the back "just another case of
see-double-ef-see-ess." Don't even get me started on the smell...

~~~
algorias
One more reason to be glad I don't smoke. The fact that smoke damages the
internals of a computer isn't obvious at all, I wouldn't ever have thought of
it. Thanks for the explanation.

~~~
billswift
It doesn't actually damage it, it just gunks it up and increases the risk of
heat damage if it isn't cleaned periodically. The real thing with the Apple
employees I think is they didn't want to mess with cleaning it and whined
about it.

------
texel
As a former Mac Genius, this is no surprise. I've seen Power Mac G4 towers so
inundated with cigarette smoke that the cooling fans completely siezed and the
processor basically melted. The video card looked like a shrinky dink. Not to
mention what the smoke does to the clear plastic on some eMacs and iMacs.
There's actually an iMac shell at the training facility in Cupertino with a
sign that says something along the lines of "Don't smoke- if not for yourself,
do it for your iMac"

~~~
nearestneighbor
Shouldn't CPUs shut themselves down when overheated?

~~~
texel
Yes, I suppose they should... this one didn't though. The thermostat must have
malfunctioned too.

------
karzeem
There are two arguments here. One is that a computer's inner workings can be
fouled by secondhand smoke. If Apple wants to deny people repairs on that
basis, it should say so in the warranty, because for laypeople it's a non-
obvious point.

The other argument is that repairing a smoker's computer is dangerous to the
health of the repairer. If that's true, there are a lot of ways they could
mitigate the health risks. (Granted, there are OSHA-ish reasons Apple might
not want to get mixed up in doing these repairs, but that takes me back to the
fact they should make it plain in the warranty.)

Separate point: this is an even better illustration of the dangers of smoking
than those blackened lungs they'd show you in grade school.

~~~
oiuytgfhjk
>Granted, there are OSHA-ish reasons Apple might not want to get mixed up in

Especially given Apple's current issue with OSHA over the amount of benzene
their computers emit

~~~
yardie
Do you have any evidence of this. My search so far has turned up plenty of
links to a Liberation.fr article from an anonymous researcher at one of
France's research institutes. And every article is from early 2007. Apple
denies it, OSHA isn't checking it, and there isn't a follow up response from
anyone quotable.

So what is the current issue with OSHA? And where can I find it?

------
pmjordan
Even leaving aside the health issues: I've had the misfortune of diagnosing
computer hardware problems in a household of heavy smokers. Computers get
dusty and dirty after a while anyway, but cigarette smoke is something else
entirely. I have never seen anything like it since. Suffice to say it doesn't
do the hardware any favours.

------
blahedo
A) please don't post links to links to articles. The actual Consumerist
article linked at AppleInsider is [http://consumerist.com/5408885/smoking-
near-apple-computers-...](http://consumerist.com/5408885/smoking-near-apple-
computers-creates-biohazard-voids-warranty) .

B) See also HN post <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=953467> .

------
jsz0
Completely valid in extreme cases. It's usually good for consumers if limited
warranties exclude preventable damage otherwise everyone is paying a higher
average cost per machine to cover warranty service for people who inflict
their own liquid or physical damage. Extending that to smoke damage seems
reasonable especially if the problem can be traced back to heat. Smoke
particulates are incredibly fine and clingy -- they will fill every nook and
crevasse of a carefully designed cooling system that doesn't have a big margin
of error to start with. It's just a fact of life these days. If you want to
smoke (and I do) you have to deal with the consequences.

