News Gigabyte gaming mouse allegedly goes up in flames — scorched device left a hole on user's desk

[Admin]

The Gigabyte M6880X meets an unexpected demise.

Gigabyte gaming mouse allegedly goes up in flames — scorched device left a hole on user's desk : Read more

 

[Findecanor]

Perhaps I should be surprised that it doesn't happen more often.

USB ports on modern computers are often powered even when the computer is "off".
Even then, I think most people keep their computers switched on, or in some manner of standby all the time.

Personally, I turn off my home PC every night as I have always done. And then I flick the breaker on the power strip to the whole setup.

 

[Amdlova]

Gigabug it's the best manufacturer in the world. Everything explodes and they keep on the market.

 

[evdjj3j]

Odd how the bottom of the mouse is barely burnt but there is a giant hole burned in the desk. Seems almost unbelievable.

 

[Findecanor]

Odd how the bottom of the mouse is barely burnt but there is a giant hole burned in the desk. Seems almost unbelievable.

If you look closely, you'll see that the desk is a kind of honeycomb paper construction with only thin layers of wood at the top and bottom.
So it was mostly holes to begin with, and air in them probably helped the honeycomb walls burn as well.

 

[SethRogensBiggestFan]

I would guess this has a detachable cable. When that is slightly loose/slightly connected it will produce arcing and this could l be the result over time.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Story has to be fake. If the mouse burned and melted so badly that it set the desk on fire then why is the bottom of the mouse, as shown by the OP in the same Reddit thread, in such great condition? Also there is no evidence of having extinquished a fire with "large flames" in the photos, both pointed out by people in that Reddit thread.

I'd say this article should be deleted.

 

[Gaidax]

Good, things on fire are faster!

 

[umeng2002_2]

Look at the picture of his desk, it was clearly a work area. $20 says he did that with a soldering iron by accident.

 

[USAFRet]

Perhaps I should be surprised that it doesn't happen more often.

USB ports on modern computers are often powered even when the computer is "off".
Even then, I think most people keep their computers switched on, or in some manner of standby all the time.

Personally, I turn off my home PC every night as I have always done. And then I flick the breaker on the power strip to the whole setup.

Meanwhile, millions of systems around the world are left on, 24/7. Both home and corporate.

 

[nitrium]

If you read the Reddit thread you will quickly find that there is simply no way this true.

 

[beyondlogic]

The Gigabyte M6880X meets an unexpected demise.

Gigabyte gaming mouse allegedly goes up in flames — scorched device left a hole on user's desk : Read more

all gigabyte products come with a free fire extinguisher.

from what i can tell the mouse was upside down for whatever reason if you look at the mouse theres a mixture of the rubberised mouse pad whatever else burned with it fused.

either 1 the mouse got knocked over anyone who has had wired mice know how easy it is to flip them lol if you get tangled in the wire then it landed on the soldering iron or something hot that was being soldered possibly.

option 2.

a short circuit caused alot of voltage and heat to go into the mouse so whatever port its connected to gave it to much voltage.

option 3. is wear and tear.
this mouse in particular uses a Omron switch which can cause this type of failure its a old mouse its very possible. especially if soldering quality was shoddy. manufactuer defect/liquid damage.

 

[8086]

Odd how the bottom of the mouse is barely burnt but there is a giant hole burned in the desk. Seems almost unbelievable.

If you look closely, you'll see that the desk is a kind of honeycomb paper construction with only thin layers of wood at the top and bottom.
So it was mostly holes to begin with, and air in them probably helped the honeycomb walls burn as well.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vNRY6natiY


99% chance this is an Ikea desk and they are made so the inside is cardboard and the desktop is a thin veneer. Google it: Ikea Hollow Desk

 

[Notton]

If you look at the mouse pad, there's a ( shaped indentation where the back of the mouse was, presumably.

What's puzzling to me is how it seems to have shot out flames from out the back, despite not having a lithium battery in it.

And also, the fixed cable seems to be in decent shape, despite whatever circuitry in the back of the mouse catching fire. Usually you'd expect the cables to melt if it was sending that much power from a short.
This is especially so with the ultra thin cables used inside mouse cords to aid with flexibility and anti-snaging.

 

[8086]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inaV2ddeI9k

 

[beyondlogic]

If you look at the mouse pad, there's a ( shaped indentation where the back of the mouse was, presumably.

What's puzzling to me is how it seems to have shot out flames from out the back, despite not having a lithium battery in it.

And also, the fixed cable seems to be in decent shape, despite whatever circuitry in the back of the mouse catching fire. Usually you'd expect the cables to melt if it was sending that much power from a short.
This is especially so with the ultra thin cables used inside mouse cords to aid with flexibility and anti-snaging.

my guess is the Omron switch malfunctioned while it was upside down its a old mouse and they can malfunction its kind of what are the odds. they used to be small concerns of static build up.

im going with age a bad solder joint amd a bit of discharge or he left it on a soldering iron and accidentally knocked it and came back from the john and went crap.

 

[SoNic67]

I don't buy it.

USB ports have normal protection at max 5W capacity, when negotiated for a mouse device, it won't be able to burn a mouse.

In any case, the USB cable wires would melt before anything.

This was external fire, like a blow torch.

Attention seeker...

 

[passivecool]

Toms has joined FB in posting absolutely anything. Post is an obvious fake. The plastic at the bottom is intact, but the desk is burnt unified all around underneath?
Oh, are we now the TH community fact-checkers? admins beware, your jobs are next.

 

[purposelycryptic]

• A USB port does not deliver the kind of power necessary for this to happen
• A mouse doesn't have the kind of circuitry inside for a power surge to cause it to go up in flames like that
• even if it did, and even if all that weren't the case, the burn pattern is entirely inconsistent with what you would theoretically see:
  • The front of the mouse, where power is delivered, is the least damaged area of the top of the mouse
  • The bottom of the mouse is largely intact, with the most damage being at the rear; the circuit board and sensor are located center front. These are the areas power is actually routed through, and would be the most damaged if this happened as described.
  • Instead, the areas actually damaged are the rear bottom and rear and central top shell, which are generally just plastic. The only parts with even slight power going through them would be the sensors for the mouse wheel and buttons, which are significantly less damaged than the unpowered plastic shell.

Even if you spliced the USB cable's power lines directly into an arc welder's leads, you would never see this happen - neither the wires in the USB cable nor the circuit board could handle the kind of power that would result in this kind of event, and would simply critically fail. Either the wire insulation would melt and cause a short circuit, resulting in the port's power being cut off, or, more likely, the traces on the circuit board would burn out instantaneously at the point of highest resistance, resulting in the circuit being cut and no more power being delivered. Either way, at most, you'd get a little bit of smoke for an instant, and a broken mouse.

Again, none of this would be possible given the power limitations and basic safeguards on a PC USB port, even if the mouse was somehow modified to send out an incorrect device class identifier, so it's all just an impossible what-if scenario to begin with. Even absolute worst case, you would still only end up with a dead USB port, not a fiery mouse of doom.

As far as I can tell, the mouse looks like someone decided to have some fun with a heat gun, although given the appearance of the desk, they might have instead used a propane torch at a distance on the mouse before directly hitting the desktop to make it even more painfully obvious this was staged.

Goal? Get some attention on Reddit, while making those who raced to make an article out of it without so much as a cursory examination or a moment's consideration feel really dumb.

I get the sense they succeeded.

 

[purposelycryptic]

all gigabyte products come with a free fire extinguisher.

from what i can tell the mouse was upside down for whatever reason if you look at the mouse theres a mixture of the rubberised mouse pad whatever else burned with it fused.

either 1 the mouse got knocked over anyone who has had wired mice know how easy it is to flip them lol if you get tangled in the wire then it landed on the soldering iron or something hot that was being soldered possibly.

option 2.

a short circuit caused alot of voltage and heat to go into the mouse so whatever port its connected to gave it to much voltage.

option 3. is wear and tear.
this mouse in particular uses a Omron switch which can cause this type of failure its a old mouse its very possible. especially if soldering quality was shoddy. manufactuer defect/liquid damage.

This was very obviously staged - the port would burn out at a voltage/amperage far below what would be required to barbecue the mouse like that, and the USB cable would melt and short circuit or the traces on the mouse's circuit board fail if that somehow magically wasn't the case.

You can fry a USB port with a malicious plug, but you aren't going to set anything on fire like this with the output from a PC USB port unless you specifically wire it to create a spark AND fill it with something extremely combustible, like gunpowder, along with some slow-burning kindling.

The plastic is bubbled from the gases released from continuous exposure to heat before finally charring - that isn't the result of direct exposure to a flame, and plastic doesn't go up in flame from something like the momentary release of energy from a short circuit; there would be scorching around the immediate area, but plastic like this is a terrible fuel by itself to perpetuate a flame, as the gases released displace the oxygen needed for it to keep burning.

I've subjected A LOT of electronic devices, computer components, plastics, and occasionally myself, to far more voltage, amperage and heat than they were ever designed for, sometimes intentionally, more often less so, and you just aren't going to get this kind of result with a mouse without continuous exposure to an external heat source.