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IBM and Lenovo Recall Sony Batteries
digihome writes "IBM and Lenovo are recalling 168,500 ThinkPad notebook battery packs in the United States and another 357,000 worldwide, saying the Sony-made lithium-ion batteries can 'cause overheating, posing a fire hazard to consumers.'" The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has more details.
Their announcement here.
This involves systems sold between February 2005 and September 2006, including:
ThinkPad R Series (R51e, R52, R60, R60e)
ThinkPad T Series (T43, T43p, T60)
ThinkPad X Series (X60, X60s)
Yes, my one month old T60 too is on the list. Though I will wait out till the initial rush dies out.
Because recalls are ugly, expensive, lawsuit-exposing, and gives mostly bad PR to whoever has to initiate one. You get some small props for being responsible, but it sort of falls short in the big fat benefits vs. risks calculator.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
$ grep model
Then compare the output to this list:The value returned is the ASM P/N (*not* the FRU!)
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
My output is listed below and does not appear to be affected ...
The list of recalled models is here.
Why is it taking everyone else so long to initiate a recall
I don't know about anyone else, but I somewhat know Lenovo's side.
Working for a Thinkpad University has a few benefits, one of them is talking to Lenovo Engineers directly at conferences, where we share our experiences with the Thinkpad with people inside the company. This results in better designs for our students. The R60 build quality I believe is an example of this, especially comparing it against the R51's we used in the past.
Our last conference with Lenovo happened the week that Dell recalled the batteries. Me and the staff I work with, as well as staff from other various Thinkpad University participants was on hand, and Lenovo wasted no time talking about the Dell recall. In Fact it was the first thing on their list.
Basically, their engineers said flat out that their was no reports of any IBM laptop exploding or catching on fire that was a result of a Lenovo battery failure (This was before the LAX incident BTW, which resulted in this recall) They did say, surprisingly however, that they DID have reports of battery explosions on IBM/Lenovo's in the past, but once they investigated the explosion, found out that it was a third party battery and NOT a Lenovo one.
They Continued the talk by showing an opened battery that was used for their R60/T60 line. (One of the ones they are actually recalling) I was actually amazed at how much engineering goes into their battery designs. Just about everything about this battery is designed with safety in mind. In fact, they said they sacrifice battery storage for safety. All of their current-gen batteries have DSP's in them that monitor Voltage, capacity, heat, as well as overall health of the battery cells and will completely disable the battery if these values get out of spec. This alone makes the battery very hard to overcharge or short, which is one of the primary reasons for battery flame-out. Second, the case holding the batteries actually isolates and cushion the individual cell from each other, so if in the event of leakage or dropage, the chance of flame-out by a short would be even more minimized.
They also had a third party battery on hand, and showed why those batteries flame-out. basically they built them as cheap as possible and they did not have the DSP to monitor the battery condition and would just basically emulate the chip. Because of this, the motherboard on the Thinkpad would think the battery is in perfect condition when in reality it's cells are overheating and basically lighting on fire. The other thing the third parties wouldn't do is isolate the individual cells and would wrap them up together in cellophane, which made them hotter running and more prone to explosion if a leak occurred.
The LAX incident according to our Lenovo Rep, is the first and only confirmed case where a First Party Battery Flamed-Out in a Thinkpad, and is the direct reason the batteries were recalled. So Lenovo's not wasting time here, where Dell let a few dozen or so go in flames and swept it under the rug for a few months. One thing I can say for certain, however, is if these batteries can go up in flames, just about any other design with these Sony cells in them is a zippo lighter waiting to happen
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!