TIL my 1998 modem almost started a small fire

I was in my college dorm room in Boston, trying to download a 4MB MP3 of 'Tubthumping' over a 28.8k modem. The phone line was tangled behind my desk and the modem got so hot from the long connection time it started to smell like burning plastic. I yanked the power cord and spent the next hour with a fan pointed at it, terrified I'd have to explain a melted modem to my RA. Anyone else have a close call with early hardware getting way too hot?

3 comments

3 Comments

patricia_king231mo ago

Oh man, I read an article once about old power supplies in those beige box computers. They said the capacitors could actually pop and leak from the heat, it was kind of a whole thing. Makes you wonder how any of that stuff survived.

felix3851mo ago

Just checking the caps for bulging before summer heat hit saved me a few times back then.

nora_wells581mo ago

Honestly @patricia_king23 is right about the old power supplies, but the real scary part was the cheap surge protectors we all used. Those things would get just as hot as the hardware and were total fire starters themselves. Saved the computer just to burn down the dorm.