SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20250606-9E5F4-2147330763. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Alienware M16R1 (Alienware M16R1 i9-13900HX 4090 with factory installed 64GB ram (2x32GB), I installed 2x 2TB SSDs as an upgrade. This is the model that has the 165HZ capable higher resolution monitor.). Incident: My M16R1 Alienware laptop caught fire underneath while using it in normal gaming conditions. I was sitting on my couch, connected to UK power using an official Alienware slim 330w charger. The laptop gave off a strange smell of burn soil or other plastics smell. I shut it down immidiately, removed the power cable, and set it aside. The smell took 5-10min to stop emanating from the laptop, and a few hours to clear the room. The next day i opened the rear case of the laptop as normal when doing any sort of SSD or ram upgrades, or fan cleaning using compressed air cans, only to discover melting on the motherboard at the DC ribbon cable that connects the external power jack to the motherboard. Specifically the end of the ribbon where the motherboard port is. The melting was extensive enough that an arc flash or fire flash occured leaving a scour mark on the motherboard, but thankfully did not burn me or the laptop tray. (I'm a US citizen, the laptop was purchased in the states, is used for game development, gaming, and business while travelling, and transitioning to living abroad) This flaw in the motherboard design extends to at least 19+ other cases spanning multiple models of this generation of laptop. Specifically the M16R1 and M18R1 laptops. In my expanded findings after it happened to me, I noted posts from users indicating the laptop was OFF and PLUGGED IN and still caught fire while folks were out of the house. My incident it was ON and UNDER USE on my lap, potentially allowing fire to jet towards my genitals through a laptop tray that allowed adequate venting. The lapt