CD Shrapnel
 

That CD blowed up real good...

Faster and faster, CD players are redlining: they cannot spin CDs any faster or else the CD will literally fly apart. Sad to say this is not an urban legend, the newer 48X speed CDROM drives can cause CDs to explode. According to CD manufacturers, your one in 10,000 risk of CD shattering is more likely with CDs that are old, scratched, cracked, or unbalanced (like with an off-center label). So stop sitting in front of your CDROM drive.

PowerLabs High Speed CD-Rom Experiments

The Case of the Exploding CD-ROM

Exploding CDROMs

(more) Exploding CDroms