*** DELL RECALLS 4.1 MILLION BATTERIES ***

JDMurray

As many of you may have read, Dell is having a terrible problem with notebook computer batteries made by Sony catching fire and even exploding. These include batteries used in the Dell Latitude™, Inspiron™, XPS™ and Dell Precision Mobile Workstation™ notebook computers. Any batteries shipped by Dell between April 1, 2004 and July 18, 2006 may be affected by Dell's battery recall.

Use the following Web page to determine if any Dell notebook batteries you have are part of Dell's recall. If you have any batteries included in the recall, immediately remove the batteries from your notebook computers and follow the recall procedures.

https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/

TheShadow

There was a lady from the US consumer protection agency on the news a bit ago. Apparently Dell has been working with them for months. It seems that it is not a design flaw but shody manufacturing practices at the Sony battery plant. This may stretch to other products such as the exploding cell phones that keep showing up. Anything with a Sony li-ion battery in it is now suspect. If the battery can be squeezed or compressed a contaminant in the battery causes a short. Don't put your cell phone in your back pocket guys or you may lose something valuable.

JDMurray

TheShadow wrote:

Don't put your cell phone in your back pocket guys or you may lose something valuable.

So true. There's been reported incidents of cell phone batteries smoking and catching fire too. It seems like one cell hone battery or another is under recall, but nothing in numbers like the 4.1M Sony notebook batteries.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/cpsc_cell_batteries.html

Danman32

I think it would be more true if it is in the front pocket.

Anyway, I received a public announcement from another computer manufacturer that is assuring that their batteries are OK, even if some of them may be made by Sony. Personally, I tend to doubt that.

Megadeth4168

Whoa... Sounds like bad news for Dell!
I don't see my laptop on there (Inspiron 1150) but I might as well double check anyway.

garv221

I have a bunch of D600's. I plugged the numbers into the website yesterday and luckily they were fine. These companies keep these recall problems under wrap as long as they can to avoid the media and costly replacements.

Olajuwon

I see lawsuits on the way.

JDMurray

Olajuwon wrote:

I see lawsuits on the way.

I'm not sure about that. There have been ample opportunities for class action lawsuit for battery recalls, but I've not heard of any. Apple has been silently recalling batteries for the Macbook Pro. HP had a laptop battery recall last year. Kyocera had a cell phone battery recall in 2004. Even XM satellite radio had a battery recall. Each of these recalls involved smoking, flaming, or exploding batteries, but I'm not aware of any lawsuits (yet).

jacev1

Here's a few pics!

Don't use them on your lap! You might lose something more valuable than data ...

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/dell/another-dell-laptop-ablaze-190546.php

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32550

JDMurray

The one in Japan looks like a magic trick gone awry. The really interesting quote is "It is only a matter of time until such an incident breaks out on a plane."

More destruction here: http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/005359.html

jlhct

So far out of the 18 laptops we have, 1 battery has to be sent back. The site makes it real convinent to check and order a new one if necessary