Between 2003 and 2005, Dell sold millions of OptiPlex computers to everyone from Walmart to Mayo Clinic. And according to newly unsealed documents, Dell knew these systems were full of dangerously faulty motherboards all along.


The story, as told by the NYT, reveals Dell as a company so desperate to cut costs that not only did they knowingly sell computers stuffed with capacitors that were sure to eventually burst and ooze all over the motherboard (possibly starting fires), they actually refused to fix the 1000 affected computers of the firm representing them regarding the related lawsuit.

(Of course, Dell was often just "fixing" the computers with more faulty motherboards anyway.)


That's as far as I'll do the story injustice here. The unabridged version is a sad but epic yarn. Somewhere, if you listen really closely, you can hear a made for TV movie being born, gasping for its first breath. [NYT via Engadget]