Hewlett-Packard (HP), Toshiba and Dell, the three major laptop computer manufacturers today announced a recall of about 35,000 notebook batteries (an additional 65,000 batteries sold worldwide). The lithium-ion batteries, manufactured by Sony can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission urged consumers to stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
According to Sony, the batteries in question were manufactured between October 2004 and June 2005 and to date there have been about 40 different incidents of overheating reported worldwide.
HP is recalling around 32,000 batteries with a bar code label starting with A0, L0, L1 or GC, which were shipped with HP Pavilion dv1000, dv8000 and zd8000 models; with Compaq Presario v2000 and v2400 machines and with HP Compaq nc6110, nc6120, nc6140, nc6220, nc6230,nx4800, nx4820, nx6110, nx6120 and nx9600 laptops.
Then, Toshiba recalled about 3,000 batteries present in Satellite A70/A75, P30/P5, M30X/M35X and M50/M55 and Tecra A3, A5 and S2 models of laptop computers. Dell’s recall includes about 150 batteries present in Latitude 110L and Inspiron 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150 and 5160 laptops. Further details about the laptop models can be found here.