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Sony Recalls 73,000 Vaio Laptops Due To Burn Worry

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the more-to-fear dept.

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."

7 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. To see if you're affected... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 4, Informative
    you're supposed to visit http://esupport.sony.com/fixmypc. Unfortunately, that just takes you to a page which says 'This is a test'. That's Sony quality for ya!

    guess i'll need to wait until I can call their hotline or something. (1-888-526-6219 if you're that interested...)

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    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  2. More than 73,000 by Spad · · Score: 4, Informative

    Up to 440,000 laptops now.

  3. Re:Sony by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sony made PDA's that ran the PalmOS (the Clié series). They were generally regarded as a very desirable/quality version of a Palm.

    Since they ran the same OS/software, it's obvcious that the GP was referring to "Palm" the platform and not the brand of device.

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  4. Re:Sony by PawNtheSandman · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not to mention Sony is a member of every **AA anti-piracy group out there.

  5. Re:I have a question... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2, Informative

    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?

    Well, there are multiple levels of protection in lithium ion battery circuits, they don't always work... There should be a fusible link in the battery pack itself that protects against a full on short. There are current limiters in the battery supervisior circuits. The earlier recall of the exploding-Sony-battery was due to little tiny metal particles in the battery shorting the cell out directly - failing before the failsafe circuitry if you will. But I think this particular failure was just a semi chronic overheat situation that fried some components slowly and caused a failure.

    The problem with monitoring the power draw from the BIOS / OS is that if the hardware decides to fritz out, it just might forget to tell the software about it.

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  6. 73,000 or 440,000? by PalmKiller · · Score: 2, Informative

    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

  7. Re:Sony optical drives by Matt_R · · Score: 2, Informative

    My boss had a Sony laptop that wouldn't read TDK CDRs. It worked just fine with the Sony CDRs...