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Sony Recalls 73,000 Vaio Laptops Due To Burn Worry
alphadogg writes "Sony is recalling 73,000 Vaio TZ laptops because of a possible manufacturing defect that may cause them to overheat, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday. The recall relates to a problem with wiring near the computer's hinge, which could short-circuit and overheat in certain circumstances, perhaps burning the user. One person has suffered a minor burn as a result of the latest defect, and Sony has received 15 other reports of overheating computers, according to the Commission."
Sony having a defective laptop? I've never heard of that happen. Sony products are perfect.
The recall relates to a problem with wiring near the computer's hinge, which could short-circuit and overheat in certain circumstances, perhaps burning the user.
That sounds like a design defect, not a manufacturing defect.
The overheating could be caused by misplaced wiring near the hinge, or if a screw in the hinge falls out and short-circuits the wires.
Nice, that's usually where the inverter is. The only better way to make a true Sony-style exploder would be a short across the battery terminals!
I had a sony walkman once, it blew up in my pants. did wonders for my sexlife.
Apparently, the famous CD rootkit wasn't good enough at preventing piracy. Well, this new tool in the fight will burn your fingers clean off. I'd like to see you try to pirate a CD when you can't even pick it up.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Sony is recalling the laptops, but my exercise instructor told me to "feel the burn"!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
guess i'll need to wait until I can call their hotline or something. (1-888-526-6219 if you're that interested...)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I've got a Vaio TZ laptop, in fact I'm using it right now and I've never had any aiiieeee! It burns! IT BURNS!!!
My walkman mp3 player (2gig, no moving parts, lightly used) lasted 4 months before developing a tic (loud pop, garbled screen, system reset) that finally happened so frequently that the unit was unusable.
My tape and cd "walkmen" (many moving parts, years of use/abuse) were still working when I lost them in my pre-craigslist, old-gadget pile.
What happened?
At least they weren't shipped with rootkits! Well, I THINK they weren't but how could you know?
I know that after being rooted by a music CD, I'll never have a Sony product burn me (except maybe my TV, which I bought before being burned by XCP). Once bitten, twice shy. Other corporations should take heed.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
...as a mathematician with my head in the clouds, I want to ask hardware types: why do things have such horrible failure modes?
Why doesn't a laptop battery do something intelligent way before it explodes, for example? I should expect to be able to short circuit externally or in several places internally and the worst case behaviour be that it blows a fuse, permanently disabling the battery. Why do the vents that are supposed to prevent explosion seem not to trigger until enough pressure has built up that someone directly above/below one is likely to get injured?
In this case, why isn't an impossibly high current draw from anywhere considered reason to shut down the laptop immediately and record such to some hardware event log viewable e.g. from BIOS setup?
Is it really that the few cents it costs to engineer these obvious safety and reliability features aren't worth considering? It's not just for the one in fifty thousand who get injured, but because if my laptop is overdriving my hard drive, for example, I want it to *tell me* way before it destroys it. An ounce of prevention, etc.
The recall relates to a problem with wiring near the computer's hinge, which could short-circuit and overheat in certain circumstances, perhaps burning the user.
Users generally get burned for buying Sony anyway.
I can't imagine why we are designing hotter laptops. Heat is waste energy, which requires a bigger battery, which generates more heat...
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What ever happened to that? My dad has a Sony tv that he got around when I was born. When I hit about 12 he got a new Sony tv. And it died, and the old one is still ticking.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Up to 440,000 laptops now.
...take off all those illegal Sony Music MP3s you've downloaded before you return it.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
My company brought two of this two TZ ultraportable laptops... Sadly I have to say: One burned into the sun (my boss one): he brought apple now... The other has serious overheating problem... I have one SZ61WN and I really like this one... Is great and works perfectly with linux.
... they do not read the "do not use the self-destruct button until you REALLY need to do" note on manual, much less the "on enabled, throw away the device on ten seconds" note
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Three IBM machines, two AS400, one I5, and none of them worked when delivered. IBM was very good about getting parts delivered, and someone to install said parts, and once up and running they have been very reliable, but it is disconcerting to pay that much for a machine and it does not work when delivered.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
So, does Sony RMA give "Advanced Replacements" of equivalent unaffected models or loaners to users of the Recalled units , Ya Right...
So what does one do when their laptop is recalled and they need one to work?
If someone purchased the on-site next-day service plan, do they still honor that because the product line is defective?
440,000+ unhappy users is a hell of a way to have "Sony Style"...
Not that Dell is the pinnacle of notebook perfection, but my older Dell laptop has been so reliable for me and it is fast enough (Inspiron 6400/E1505) that I bought one for my Dad and a spare one for myself on ebay recently... (And for the record, I NEVER use the MediaDirect button... deleted that useless partition a long time ago) Very easy to completely disassemble and swap components, screens, drives, CPUs, etc...
Sony should focus less on making think look pretty and "feature filled" more on making them reliable.
BURN!
Sell them to Eskimos.
During the colder months, sell them to Canadians, Islanders, Norwegians, Russians... etc...
Silly Sony... If they had only managed to drag on the issue for a few more months...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Here they say its more like 440,000 recalled. I expect a little variation, but this is a major difference...makes me wonder if one is talking about worldwide, and one local. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7598344.stm
I specifically buy Sony optical drives because
1. I've generally not had problems with them and
2. I get a real good chuckle when I make illegal copies of audio discs recorded on their label.
You'd be happy to just receive burns.
Seriously. I worked tech support for several different PC companies who were secretly all under the same corporate umbrella.
One of the companies had laptops that had actually burnt down one or two people's houses, and we had to replace many that overheated. At the same time, another of the companies had a popup on their home page advertising "HOT deals on laptops" - complete w/ a photoshopped pic of a laptop with flames coming out of it. The popup did finally get removed, after about a week, but us techs had many a laugh about it in the meantime.
We should give them some credit. Dell ignored their issue until Jarvis really hammered them. I'd seen a least a dozen incidents of dell's starting fires. At least Sony admitted the problem and initiated the recall before their customers started having real issues.
Since this is Sony-Bony, the tag "DefectiveByDesign" would be more than appropriate. everything they have made and will make is defective by design.
My first CD burner was Sony. The computer I bought it for only did DMA1.
13 months after I bought the drive, I upgraded the computer. The burner produced coaster after coaster.
Turns out that the drive didn't support DMA3, but it told the motherboard that it did. I did some looking on the net, and it turned out that this was a known issue with the burner and there was a firmware fix for it. Only none of the links I could find worked.
I emailed Sony about it, and their response was "that drive was discontinued three months ago, so we won't give you the new firmware."
Their customer support sucks. It wouldn't have cost them anything to send me the firmware, and they'd have a satisfied customer. Instead, the decided it was more important to screw their customer over.
I'd like to hear that too, good to know if you are in the used and cheap laptop market. Computers I can't tell you, guns I can, used to fix them. For shotguns, cheap to buy and very good quality, you can't go much wrong with a remington 870, tough as nails.
I own a Vaio VGN-TZ17TN which started smelling like smoke a couple months ago. When I turned it off I found a melted area on the bottom of the case near the hinge. It looked to me like a power regulator's heat sink had overheated in a big way, but when I got the machine back the paperwork said they had replaced lots of wiring harnesses. I can't help but wonder if I experienced the issue that the recall is for.
That said, I can't find a real press release about exactly which models are affected. Mine is a Taiwanese model, as is my girlfriend's (a TZ-16). I suppose I'll have to contact sony directly to see if hers needs to be repaired and if the issue I experienced was related.
In regard to Sony's quality, I have long been a sony fan- everything from minidisc through laptops and tvs and with the exception of my melting computer this summer I have never had an issue with their quality. I think their design aesthetic tops every other competing brand- even apple (who has copied a number of sony's design innovations)- and I think they produce a good product, albeit overpriced.
I love my TZ, and I like Sony. I just wish their recalls were easier to find.
My employer has a contract to do these fixes. What has aparrently happened is some assembly workers have routed the DC cables for the power jack (which is in the left hinge) on top of the hinge rather than alongside and slightly underneath. This can potentially fray the wire and cause a short. Once we determine that the system is affected, we are to redo the wiring to that side of the hinge replace the webcam (if necessary) add an insulator to the hinge and put a rubber cap on one of the screws. Doesn't seem that time consuming and it looks like it's an on-site swap for everybody.