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

This leaves only Acer and HP

[arivanov]

Out of all big Sony battery customers this leaves only Acer and HP. Everybody else has recalled. Interesting - how long till they recall the remainders (they did partial "fire" recalls last year).

Re:This leaves only Acer and HP

[markana]

Over at HP, Mark Hurd is reported to have said that he was sent the reports of batteries exploding, but he hadn't read them. Patricia Dunn is quoted as saying "I thought laptops burst into flames all the time. I still don't see anything wrong with it."

Spokespersons at HP defended the batteries, saying that laptop batteries routinely exploded in use: "It's a standard industry practice".

HP's stock rose on analysts predictions that sales of replacement laptops would surge following the wave of melted hardware. "They were going to have to buy all new laptops to run Vista anyway.", said one. "This way, the customers can stick it to their insurance companies."

Who's the bad guy now?

[twifosp]

Everyone ripped on Dell when they first announced the recall. Sony's PR said this was a Dell issue, and not a Sony one. There were even some pretty hilarious jokes about Dell Laptops and [insert exploding situation here].

So why were they so bad for recalling the batteries months before everyone else again?

Or I guess a better, and more on-topic, question would be: Why is it taking everyone else so long to innitiate a recall?

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.

Not good for Sony

[PineHall]

When I think of Sony, I think of rootkits, exploding batteries and a delayed PS3. Sony has some significant problems. I don't think I want to buy anything connected with the name of Sony.

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!)