Major PC Vendors to Recall Overheating Sony Batteries

This is probably not the best of times for Sony, as the company has recently taken quite a blow with the announcement of the second quarter results, indicating that revenues had decreased by as much as 71.8 percent, compared with the same period in 2007. In addition, Sony is now expected to financially support a recall of about 35,000 notebook computer batteries, as issued by the US government on Thursday. Furthermore, the company is also said to be required to do the same with an additional 65,000 batteries on a worldwide scale.

 

The notebook battery recall issued by the US government has to do with about 19 reports of batteries overheating, including 17 reports of fire, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The CPSC said that the recall specifically involved the Sony-branded lithium-ion batteries that were used mainly in computers from leading systems vendor Hewlett-Packard Co, with a small number of notebooks also coming from Dell and Toshiba.

 

Sony batteries powering certain Pavilion, Compaq Presario and HP Compaq notebooks sold between December 2004 and June 2006 are said to have been affected by the same issue. Satellite and Tecra models from Toshiba, sold between April 2005 and October 2005, as well as Latitude and Inspiron notebooks sold between November 2004 and November 2005, are also said to be among the affected models.

 

In response to the overheating issues claims, Sony said that the faulty batteries were due to the adjustments done to its manufacturing line in 2004 and 2005, adjustments believed to have affected the quality of some cells.

 

In addition to the low market performance and the recent recall of its notebook batteries, Sony also has to deal with a massive recall of 438,000 Vaio laptops, which were reported to have overheating issues related to the portable system's battery.

 

A complete list of the affected models can be found here and, according to the CPSC, users are advised to remove the battery from their notebooks, and contact the manufacturer to request a replacement.