Fried

I don't know how it happened, but somehow, one of our automatic voltage regulators (AVRs) at the office melted one of the prongs right off of the plug of my laptop power cord today.



One of my officemates nearby was the first to notice something wrong -- she said she could smell something burning. The AVR that I use is actually a couple of desks away, so I didn't notice the smell at first.

Anyway, she followed her nose and finally realized that it was the AVR! We turned it off and unplugged the power cord. As my camphone photo shows, one corner of the rubber insulation on the plug had melted away into a black ugly mess. A quick check showed that the missing prong is still stuck inside the AVR socket.

I can only conclude that something went wrong with the AVR, which is really ironic, since the whole point of using an AVR is to protect your equipment! Thankfully, the laptop itself appears to be unaffected. Now I just have to get myself a new power cord.