M16 R1 2023 caught fire

So I've tried following the support links, and phone tree.  I am getting put into loops.

I bought this laptop in the states as part of a move, paid for one year full coverage because at the time the full 4K it cost to get this laptop another 1-2K for additional years was out of the question for our budget at the time.

The move came and went, a lot happened during that time to cause me severe anxiety, BUT I kept this laptop in a safe place either in my backpack or on a desk majority of the time.  When I would develop my game effort in unreal engine this laptop worked flawlessly, a bit loud, but great for my needs.

When I moved to the UK it was working fine until the beginning of 2025.  I was told to update drivers for playing modern games, seeing as the latest GPU drivers I had were December 2024, I updated to March of 2025.

After a few months of smooth gaming, where the laptop was on a vented tray to promote cooling, or on a stand to give max cooling, it let out an unpleasant smell of earth or soil.  At first I thought it was the local farms topsoil smell coming into our home, but no, it was the nylon wrapping of the DC IN ribbon cables self emolating.

The laptop continued to operate without us knowing what was happening.  Battery was normal, power was normal, but a brief power disconnect from AC occured.

The next time I went to use it, battery refused to charge fast, and ac power kept disconnecting, followed by severe burning smell, this time plastic and PCB.

The laptop, has caught fire internally.

We didn't know, but our of caution shut it off and removed outer cover.

The ribbon was burnt, and brittle.  Indicating extreme fatigue due to wire undersizing.

This was what I saw when I went to examine and work a replacement DC in cable assuming it was the cable that had failed only and nothing more.

I was wrong, the DC in has caused a fire inside the pin connections during factory configuration, and occured only shortly after leaving full coverage.

My entire life's work, could have been lost, I still have my SSDs thankfully, but worse the product could have caused a molten metal fire and dropped through the case, through my laptop tray I was using at the time, and caused injury to my sensitive places.

This, is not the first incident reported, and indicates a potential flaw in design.

Dell, please help.  Your support links go in circles, and the funds invested, had I bought a server or desktop, wouldn't have resulted in a fire incident within 16 months of purchase.  I have been a loyal customer and enterprise user for a long time through various orgs during my career, this is upsetting to say the least.  I'm very thankfult he fire stopped when it did, instead of causing my home to be burned down while we were asleep or out of the house had I decided to run an overnight compile task.