Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: PC, Exploding, Burned, Engineer | Themes: Desktop Computers
A young software engineer was found dead in front of his burned-up computer, however the cause of the explosion has yet to be determined, baffling police.
As a rule of thumb, it's not nice to make light of the misfortunes of others, especially when physical harm comes into play. There are certainly numerous jokes that involve exploding PCs, especially where gaming, overclocking, and porn is concerned. Many of them have no tact for obvious reasons, and there's no doubt that readers may recall one or two by the end of this article. But truth be told, news surrounding a burned up man sitting in front of smoking debris that once served as a PC only conjures up comical images seen in cartoons.
According to The Times of India, a 28-year-old software engineer--named only as Vijayakumar in the article--was found dead this past Friday in his home on Telugu Brahmin Street in Velachery. Vijayakumar shared the house with two other software engineers--Vignesh (26) and Ram Prasad (26)--although the latter roommate was the only other tenant present at the time of Vijayakumar's demise. Apparently, Prasad went to take a bath, and then rushed back out after hearing a loud blast. He told police that he saw the charred remains of Vijayakumar still sitting in front of a smoldering PC... and then fainted.
So what happened to Vijayakumar? According to local police, the PC exploded and burned it user alive. “We are yet to ascertain the cause of the blast," a police officer told Times of India. "The computer was completely damaged and the deceased was charred." The officer also went on to say that the case has baffled the investigating officers, sounding rather unbelievable, and something they had never seen before.
"But the scene of the accident seems to suggest that the youth was killed in an accident as his body was in the sitting position in front of the burnt computer,” the official added.
For now, the police have not offered any other information. Certainly many factors could have caused the PC to short circuit: faulty wiring, spilled liquids, maybe even a jolt of lightning crashing through the power outlet. Perhaps the power supply arced and burned him up on the spot, or the PC had faulty power cables. It would be understandable had Vijayakumar's demise been the direct result of an exploding battery in a laptop. But an exploding PC? That remains questionable. Still, because Vijayakumar was found burned in a sitting position, its easy to assume that whatever happened was close to instantaneous.
And where was Vignesh during the entire incident? No, something about the entire incident sounds fishy. With Prasad the only other individual in the house, the grim setting sounds like a plot yanked straight out of a thriller movie. Hopefully, more information will surface soon because, quite frankly, if there are faulty parts out there on the market, then we as consumers need to know. Period.
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That is one of the worst ways to die.
At least he may have died doing something he loved... unless he was debugging some code.
Poor guy.
I'm not sure how the parts inside of a PC could cause the steel/aluminum case to explode and burn the user instantly. Some other factor has obviously caused this. On the comical/silly side...maybe Mac will have a new sales pitch to counter the recent Microsoft ads. Macs will not explode and kill you!.
it could've been a CRT screen blowing up, although thats more of an explosion of glass then a fire
Must be a new variant of Conficker. Should have installed Symantec AV.
looks like an april fools joke...
latest news: Conflicker virus adds bomb into pc
How large would of the blast had to of been to kill him instantly? It doesn't really make sence at all?
Conflicker actually propgrates nanites by causing a specific spark pattern in MBR1000 Black Mobile Broadband Router, exploiting a rare silicon defect:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30071141/
This may be what caused the fire.
Skynet is killing all programmers. All that’s gonna left to fight for humanity is lawyers and their twisted words. (Maybe they can destroy the robots with logical loop)
Must have been running a AMD cpu. They are lucky the whole neighborhood didn't get mushroom clouded. But seriously that is a very odd way to die and so fast... don't quite believe the story something else must have happened.
i think i have read about this type of thing before, thats right, weekly world magazine
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/wp-con [...] r_bomb.jpg
looks like an april fools joke...
Or a mob hit...like a car bomb except a pc bomb?
[citation]conjures up comical images seen in cartoons[/citation]
Die Hard 4 actually.
lol @ the fan boys thumbing down my comment for making a simple and obvious joke.
Anyways thinking about this even more chances are he had a all in one PC as it just wouldn't make sense for his PC to be right in his face otherwise. It doesn't say his monitor simply exploded.
It is not possible for a PC to explode. He can be electrocuted quite easily especially but there is nothing in a PC that can cause an explosion.
This is why you're not supposed to buy sub-par power supplies. If the power supply had faulty wiring/grounding, there's a chance that he could've been electrocuted before the computer exploded and further burned him. Just my two cents.
Die Hard 4 ??? or maybe his mate set this plan to kill him ......
I wonder if he had a thermite kill switch, that went horribly wrong?
Actually there is one thing in computers that can explode and do a very considerable amount of damage, Capacitors. However, one that could do what has been described would have to be on the order of an entire Farad, which would hold an amazingly high amount of charge (1 coulomb/volt to be exact - a lightening strike carries 3-5 coulombs or charge typically to put that in perspective) and be about as large as a 5 gallon paint bucket. SO, we can probably rule out capacitors as the source....just my 2 cents (and some of what being an electrical engineering student has taught me so far).
My guess would be that it was a CRT that blew and "charred" him. The gasses that come out would be considerably pressurized and can be amazingly hot while not burning themselves, they could badly damage a person (example - steam burns). It is entirely possible that the reporter made the common (noob) mistake of calling the monitor the computer. Definately interested to hear a little more about this.
And for the people saying that there was a bomb in the copmuter, while an entertaining thought, not likely. As it would need to be a focused directional blast like a claymore in order to do what was described without leveling the house, Also he was charred, not "fragged" (I couldnt resist)
It is quite possible for a poorly designed and build power supply to explode. More specifically, if incorrectly sized aluminum electrolytic capacitors are used, and they are of poor quality, they could explode with quite a bit of force. These are the big, round cans inside the PSU. High-quality capacitors have stress lines in them which will "give" in the case of internal over-pressure, venting a foul-smelling cloud of chemicals. If a poorly-built capacitor isn't designed with this vent structure, a great deal of pressure could build up inside and cause the capacitor to burst violently. I have seen this happen when the capacitor is subjected to a severe over-voltage. Solid capacitors like ceramic and especially tantalum can explode and burst into flames, but these tend to be relatively small devices - more like a firecracker than a dynamite stick, as it were.
Even so, it is unlikely that an exploding power supply would cause the PC case to fly apart - let alone kill someone.
This must somehow involve underwear gnomes. It is a conspiracy I tell you.
What if the PC was like one of those horiztonally placed ones, with the monitor on top? If the PSU was facing the programmer then that might be the reason.
Maybe he was passed out drunk and his computer caught fire. I couldn't see a computer exploding with enough force/heat to render him unconscious and burn him alive, or instantly char him... The CRT idea sounds probable though. *shrug
I bet he had a couple of 4870X2's in CF, with poor cooling, that is prime for disaster. He was probably running a Vantage torture test with like 1 80mm fan for ventalation. It's too bad the Arctic Cooling Accellero Xtreme 4870X2 coolers aren't out yet....
Since details are sketchy there is a chance that its ignorance on the police. Many people I deal with refer to the computer when they really mean the screen (yes it is annoying) BUT what if the police said computer when what they ment was the screen. If it was a CRT it could IMPLODE but that still throws glass shards. Wounds him or knocks him out then the screen catches fires and burns him. Still Sucks.
Sounds like BS to me. I'm willing to bed the PC was rigged.
Derek Smalls: Just like that.
David St. Hubbins: He just went up.
Nigel Tufnel: He just was like a flash of green light... And that was it. Nothing was left.
Nigel Tufnel: Well, there was...
David St. Hubbins: It's true, this really did happen.
Nigel Tufnel: It's true. There was a little green globule on his drum seat.
David St. Hubbins: Like a stain, really.
Nigel Tufnel: It was more of a stain than a globule, actually.
David St. Hubbins: You know, several, you know, dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It's just not really widely reported.
it's not bad enough that the software is bug ridden, but now this, not good at all, i can only imagine what the next apple vs pc commercial will be like. ;-)
Crap... more ammo for the next Apple TV AD.
Hell, I'm a PC - We burn our users Alive.
Mac: uh, okay... you win.
he must be using the Intel Pentium 4 or Pentium D presscott cpu , the highest temperture chips ever made
CRT's have a vacuum inside so I doubt if the monitor was a CRT that it was the source of the explosion. I'm curios as to what was the cause of the accident.