Lately while working this smell has been hitting me. It’s the familiar copper odor of wires burning. And then it’s gone. That’s been happening on and off for a good month now. What do I do?

I start leaning over and smelling everything. It’s weird and looks ridiculous, but I have to track down the odor. Since I’m surrounded by electronics, tracking down exactly what’s in trouble mode isn’t a five second process, especially when the smell comes and goes like a soft breeze. Smelling monitors, sniffing the Mac, speakers and moving my way to power supplies and cords. Finally, I discovered it. Something I haven’t written about for awhile.

My Tablet PC.

Day 780 of ownership adds a new twist: the amazing disappearing burning wire smell. Right now it smells like, well, a normal computer. It’s not hot or even that warm to the touch and it’s been running 24/7 for a several days. I could faintly smell the copper a few days ago, but not now.

We were driving along last night in shopping mode — more on that in a later post — talking about what to do with the slate tablet. The I/O board has been messed up for nearly a year now (see day 445), but since it still works with the existing programs and those that I can download, we haven’t been rushed to get it fixed. Anything that requires the CD and can’t be installed over the network is out since I cannot use any USB connected devices besides a mouse. It’s something I still use every day, primarily in business.

Has my tablet become a fire hazard? With all the stories about laptop batteries exploding and fires, I’m now on high alert, however, the intermittent smell isn’t coming from the battery area, it’s coming from where the AC adapter is plugged in. Through all this, no new tablet issues have appeared, nothing software-oriented anyway.

(insert Twilight Zone music)

With Vista finally out, I’m strongly pondering a new laptop purchase this year anyway. One thing I’m 99% certain I won’t do is buy another Motion Computing tablet. I would like to buy another tablet as I like the form factor and it’s been useful on many levels. I remain disappointed with the pricing and hope that Vista having the Tablet OS will mean more convertibles and slates at lower price points. Pricing to me remains the #1 reason the Tablet PC hasn’t taken off. Anybody who has bought one and used it, particularly in businesses where notetaking is part of the job almost immediately sees the benefit.

On Monday’s Hmmcast I talked about my Fostex multitrack recorder that is over 22 years old still working good and here this tablet is a little over two years old and I’m having these hardware problems? Maybe it’s just the AC adapter although it seems to be working fine as of this writing. The Fostex cost $450 in 1984. The tablet cost over $2,500 in 2004.

How’s that for progress? There’s a signpost up ahead, next stop the repair zone?

History of Tablet PC Ownership
July 26, 2003 - December 15, 2004: Chronology of tablet indecision (pre-tablet ownership)
December 19, 2004: First full week of ownership complete
February 13, 2005: 60 days after buying a Tablet PC, was it worth it?
March 3, 2005: Day 78 bought external CD-RW drive
May 3, 2005: Day 140
June 27, 2005: Day 196 incompatibility of EVDO Kyocera cards
August 12, 2005: 241 days of Tablet PC Ownership
September 1, 2005: Day 261: Tablet PC sales projections being downshifted by market researchers
September 15, 2005: Day 276 Current office main configuration includes Tablet PC, 3 PCs, Mac
October 12, 2005: Day 302 as Tablet PC owner: email, chat and gaming
December 13, 2005: Day 365: looking back at one year with a Tablet PC
January 22, 2006: Day 405: Dual monitor on Tablet PC alert!

Hardware problems begin
March 4, 2006: Day 445: Tablet I/O board problems
May 5, 2006 Day 508: 10% broken and easy to forget about Bluetooth
Day 577: New Tablet PC purchases being caught in the Vista waiting game
Day 780: The amazing disappearing wire smell act

Did this post make you go hmm?

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