That cat urine odor is coming from your Dell laptop

If you own cats, you probably don’t even notice. If you don’t, you may wonder why every time you turn on your laptop there’s a distinct smell of cat urine. Consumers are upset and Dell isn’t saying a whole lot.

You know that new-computer smell, the scent of Styrofoam packing materials, ink on instruction books, and fresh plastic. Buyers of Dell’s Latitude 6430u ultrabook have been complaining for months about a more odoriferous issue with their new machines, along the lines of eau de cat piss.

The hub for complaints is a Dell tech support discussion titled “New 6430u smells awful.” It contains a veritable bouquet of descriptive missives, including, “The machine is great, but it smells as if it was assembled near a tomcat’s litter box.”