The Dell Latitude 6430u may have been named an "editor's choice" by PC Magazine, but the computer turns out to have a problem having nothing to do with how it runs: It smells like cat pee.
Dozens of posters on the Dell community forum have related their problem of not wanting to be near their smelly new computer.
The Dell support technician recommended cleaning the keyboards and using compressed air, which the users deemed useless advice.
At least one thing is consistent: The posters all agree that the keyboards smell like a litter box.
Like, they really, really smell.
Like cats.
Cats going to the bathroom.
Support technician Dell-SteveB tried to ease customers' angst about their smelly computers. "I’ll go out on a limb here and say that the smell is not related to cat urine," he wrote, saying they were close to the root cause.
On Oct. 15, he said they discovered the problem was caused by the manufacturing process, and had been resolved.
But for those who had likely spent at least $1,100 for the foul-smelling equipment, like user holysmokecp, that wasn't so reassuring: "do you mean that when I open my computer it will no longer smell like a pack of well hydrated feral cats?"
