Chances of it catching on fire

[Bunny1992]

I've disassembled my Thinkpad before in order to clean it out, and it worked fine after I reassembled it and so last night I took off the keyboard as well as the touchpad to clean it out some more, but I'm now worried about whether I've put it back together properly. I'm fairly sure, but what are the chances/causes of it catching on fire if it hasn't been put back together properly?

[sjthinkpader]

Welcome to the forum.

These computers have 15 plus fuses to reduce this risk. It could still catch on fire but they try to minimize that possibility by design.

[ZaZ]

I'd say pretty low.

[Robbyrobot]

I've disassembled my Thinkpad before in order to clean it out, and it worked fine after I reassembled it and so last night I took off the keyboard as well as the touchpad to clean it out some more, but I'm now worried about whether I've put it back together properly.

What model? And the reference to "disassembly" is confusing when you then say that you removed the keyboard and touchpad to "clean it out some more". When you disassemble a thinkpad, at least a T4x or later (which has a touchpad), the keyboard and palmrest with touchpad are the first things you remove. Disassembly means taking the whole machine apart, and really only starts afterward.

At any rate, merely blowing out the dust after removing the keyboard and palmrest won't have any effect on the machine except possibly to improve cooling, and that certainly won't increase the minimal chance of the computer catching fire. Now, if you were to clean out the interior with some flammable liquid, that would be a different story - but I assume you didn't do that.

Otherwise, the only way you could ignite a Thinkpad would be with a defective lithium ion battery - but whereas I've heard of problems with other makes of laptop, I haven't read any reports about Thinkpads having such problems.

All in all - don't worry.

[TonyJZX]

only dells catch fire

[poshgeordie]

only dells catch fire

which was a battery defect I believe.

Not forgetting Apple and HP as well....

[pianowizard]

Not forgetting Apple and HP as well....

And Thinkpads, of course.

[TonyJZX]

dell was the only company that made it to the ntsb/tsa though...

[richk]

The only one I saw that looked like it caught fire was one where the guy tried to change batteries while it was plugged in and couldn't get the battery out. He tried to pry it out with a screwdriver and inserted the blade right into the battery contacts. He was holding the machine up when he was doing this maneuver, and dropped it to the floor when it sparked. He broke the screen, the case, the lid and the hard drive. He broke a wire in the power adapter, burned the motherboard and cooked the battery. There weren't many usable parts

[sjthinkpader]

Or the time when I had the camera open, battery was out but I touched the flash high voltage circuit. It shorted thru the other circuits and the camera was toast. My skin was burnt and I can smell it.