Imagine your surprise when your gaming mouse suddenly bursts into flames. That's exactly what happened to Reddit user lommelinn, who found their Gigabyte M6880X mouse engulfed in flames while their PC was in sleep mode. The incident almost led to a catastrophic fire in their apartment.

Sharing their harrowing experience on Reddit, lommelinn recounted, “I smelled smoke early this morning, so I rushed into my room and found my computer mouse burning with large flames. Black smoke filled the room. I quickly extinguished the fire, but inhaled a lot of smoke in the process and my room is in a bad shape now, covered with black particles (my modular synth as well). Fortunately, we avoided the worst, but the fact that this can happen is still shocking. It's an older wired, optical mouse from Gigabyte.”

The Gigabyte M6880X is an older wired mouse that appears to be a standard gaming mouse. It operates via USB 2.0, drawing only 5V at 0.5A, making its alleged catastrophic failure all the more puzzling. Images shared by lommelinn show the top rear panel of the mouse completely melted, while the underside remained relatively undamaged. The cause of the damage being confined to the top casing remains a mystery. Additional photos reveal the extent of the damage to the user’s desk, with a melted section of both the desk and mousepad visible.

My Gigabyte mouse caught fire and almost burned down my apartment

byu/lommelinn inpcmasterrace

Gigabyte responded promptly to lommelinn’s claim on the Reddit thread, stating:

Hi Everyone,

We have been made aware of the incident shared by lommelin regarding the M6880X gaming mice. Our customer's safety is our top priority and we are actively looking into this case. Our team has reached out to lommelin to offer support and to investigate the matter fully. In the meantime, we appreciate the community’s understanding and patience as we work to address this issue.

Best,
The GIGABYTE Team.

In a follow-up post, lommelinn expressed their disbelief at the unexpected incident, stating, "My PC was in sleep mode. Since then, I checked the USB port with a voltage meter and it's fine. No clue how this can happen."