Posted 10/12/09 at 11:45:23 AM by Paul Lilly

Acer over the weekend issued a voluntary safety recall for several Aspire notebook models that the company warns could overheat under specific conditions.

According to Acer, affected models include the AS3410, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3810TZ, and AS3810TZG manufactured prior to September 15, 2009. Said models suffer from a defect whereby the microphone cable is prone to overheating when "extreme pressure is applied repeatedly to the left palm rest." In such cases, Acer says units could become warped or stop working altogether.

If you think you may have an affected unit, Acer has set up up a website where you can enter your serial number or SNID to find out for sure.

Recall Notice and Lookup Form

Read More

Posted 10/14/08 at 12:00:00 PM by Will Smith

We love to have tons of cool electronics hooked up to the big living room TV -- who doesn’t? But, if you’re like us, your significant other is less keen on seeing all that awesome black plastic and shiny metal, and you probably did the same thing we did: Went out and bought an overpriced, crappy piece of mass-produced furniture that has doors. Doors! And what do those doors do? They create hot pockets of electronics-killing heat that will shorten the life of our precious gear. All to keep the wife happy.

Fear not, heat haters. We put the Maximum PC brain trust to work in assembling a quick, quiet, and easy cooling solution for, well, just about any cabinet you’re willing to cut a hole in. We tested our solution with two of the hottest pieces of hardware we could find: an Xbox 360 and an AppleTV. With both boxed turned on, and with the door closed, the internal temperature of the cabinet quickly hit 130F. But after we mounted our heat-triggered fan, we saw the internal temperatures hovering a scant degree or two above room temperature. Want to find out how we did it? Hit the jump!

Read More