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.

Comments

From Lenovo.com

[E IS mC(Square)]

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.

Quick check (Linux)

[toolz]

To quickly check (under Linux) if you are subject to the battery recall:

$ grep model /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info

Then compare the output to this list:

ASM P/N FRU P/N
92P1072 92P1073
92P1088 92P1089
92P1142 92P1141
92P1170 92P1169 or 93P5028
92P1174 92P1173 or 93P5030

The value returned is the ASM P/N (*not* the FRU!)

Check Your Battery from Linux

[d3xt3r]

If you're running Linux and want to check your battery model number without powering off.

1. Open up a shell
2. Type: cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info
3. Look for the line labled model number:

My output is listed below and does not appear to be affected ...

cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info
present: yes
design capacity: 84240 mWh
last full capacity: 79610 mWh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 10800 mV
design capacity warning: 3980 mWh
design capacity low: 200 mWh
capacity granularity 1: 1 mWh
capacity granularity 2: 1 mWh
model number: 92P1133
battery type: LION
OEM info: Panasonic

The list of recalled models is here.