Matrix42 Offers 30-Day Trial of Empirum Inventory to Help Companies Identify Defective Dell Notebook Batteries
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matrix42 is responding to Dell's notebook lithium ion battery recall by offering companies a fast and easy way to identify the devices that may contain the potentially dangerous batteries.
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Sony's battery woes continued late Monday, as laptop manufacturer Toshiba announced it was recalling 340,000 batteries across its Dynabook and Satellite lines. Unlike the Dell and Apple recalls, however, Toshiba says the defective batteries do not pose a fire risk.
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Curse of the fire-breathing Sonys Lenovo and IBM today issued a recall on notebook batteries sold with various ThinkPad models between February 2005 and September 2006.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Fujitsu'sÂ recall of defective batteriesÂ will affect 287,000 notebook PCs, including 63,000 in Japan, the company said Wednesday. Fujitsu last week became the fifth recent PC vendor to recall batteries using lithium-ion cells made by Sony Energy Devices. A manufacturing defect can cause those cells to short circuit, overheating and in some cases catching fire. So Fujitsu has asked both users of certain notebook PCs and dealers with unsold computers in their inventory to return the affected batteries, said Sean Nemoto, investor relations manager for Fujitsu. Dell started the rush when it announced on Aug. 14 it wouldÂ recall 4.1 million batteries, following complaints from a handful of customers that their PCs had burst into flames. Other vendors quickly followed, includingÂ Apple Computer,Â Toshiba,Â Lenovo Group, IBM, andÂ Fujitsu. Together they have recalled 7.9 million batteries. Sony has beenÂ pushing vendors to recall its batteriesÂ even in the absence of customer complaints. Sony said Thursday that it was working with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall any remaining defective cells in notebooks worldwide. The move will not affect other types of consumer electronics that use lithium-ion cells, such as cameras and music players. Notebook vendors insist that the number of actual fires is very small, amounting to just fractions of a percent compared to the many millions of batteries recalled. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has counted 47 incidents of smoke or fire coming from notebook computers from January 2001 to August 2006. Sony and the vendors continue to debate whether the fault lies solely in battery cell manufacturing, or also in the design of notebook PCs. Sony designs its batteries to shut down after a short circuit, but in certain occasions they will continue to overheat. "The potential for this to occur can be affected by variations in the system configurations found in different notebook computers," the company said. Hewlett-Packard said Monday that its customers had not experienced any overheated batteries thanks to redundant safety features used in HP notebooks. "Because of HP's PC system configuration, HP notebooks using Sony battery cells are not prone to overheating issues that have recently been observed," the companies said in a joint statement. However, other vendors insist their designs are also safe. Dell's recall is careful to state that "only the described batteries are subject to this recall and not the notebook computers themselves."
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Dell Inc. has now recalled 4.2 million battery packs made by Sony, 100,000 more than  it initially recalled in August. Altogether, various laptop makers have recalled 6.5 million batteries because of fire hazards.
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About 4.4 million AC adapters sold worldwide with Dell notebooks between September 1998 and February 2002 were recalled Friday. Dell sold the adapters with its Latitude, Inspiron and Precision series of computers, as well as separately.
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(InfoWorld) - Toshiba has offered to exchange 340,000 notebook computer batteries, but said they do not pose a fire hazard. Instead, defective batteries could unexpectedly cut power to the notebooks, causing users to lose unsaved work. TheÂ batteries, made by Sony, may fail to charge correctly, causing the power to cut off suddenly if the notebook is not connected to a mains outlet, said Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori. Reports of lithium ion cells in notebook batteries overheating or catching fire have prompted other computer manufacturers, including Apple Computer and Dell, to issue safety recalls.Â Dell recalled 4.1 million batteriesÂ used in its notebook computers in August, citing a fire hazard, whileÂ Apple recalled 1.8 million batteries, warning that they could overheat. Toshiba's batteries areÂ not at risk of starting a fire, Ohmori said. "There is no such hazardous or related issue," he said. Instead, Toshiba's problems stem from a defect in the interface circuitry between the battery cells and the computer. That defect is caused by corrosion, said a spokesman for Sony, the manufacturer of the batteries. An ingredient used in the insulating paper of batteries manufactured between March and May can corrode components in the batteries' charging circuits, causing them to fail, said Sony spokesman Takashia Uehara. The supplier changed the composition of the insulating paper without notice, he said. Batteries made for other notebook manufacturers also contained the paper, and Sony is working with those companies to see whether there is a problem, Uehara said. He declined to say how many batteries were affected overall. Toshiba's battery exchange offer covers 10 models of Toshiba notebook computer. The company will post a software tool to its Web site shortly, allowing customers to identify whether their computer is affected, Ohmori said.
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Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu Ltd.   6702.T said on Wednesday it would recall 287,000 notebook PC   batteries made by Sony Corp. 6758.T.
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Battery making startup Boston Power is more than tripling production of its&#160;Sonata laptop battery, a device that offers faster charging and longer life than conventional lithium-ion batteries, it is due to announce Thursday.Boston Power has also struck a manufacturing partnership with Taiwan&#39;s GP Batteries, which will begin making the cells to supplement current production at China&#39;s HYB Battery. GP will produce around 1 million cells per month, said Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and CEO of Boston Power. HYB currently produces between one third and one half that amount, she said.The Sonata battery was a hit when it was unveiled at the Demo 2007 conference in January 2007 because, according to Boston-Power, it gets over some of the main frustrations laptop users have with their battery packs. Namely it can be charged to 80 percent of total capacity in 30 minutes so even on a short lay-over a meaningful amount of power can be recharged into the battery and it should also last the average three years that people keep their laptops without a noticeable degradation in performance.In light of a series of high-profile problems and recalls of lithium-ion batteries, Boston-Power is also pushing safety. It says its Sonata battery uses less reactive chemicals and has a series of protective controls that make it safer than competing batteries.With the extra production, Boston-Power will be looking to pick up customers for the Sonata batteries. It has already been working closely with Hewlett-Packard.&quot;We are delighted with the response from the market. Interest is really, really large&quot; said Lampe-Onnerud. &quot;We have worked with top-tier notebook makers for several years and they remain extremely engaged. Many have already qualified our system but we&#39;re a small company so we have to be selective about who we work with.&quot;Boston-Power has also closed a third round of financing for $45 million, which it will announce Thursday. The round, led by Oak Investment Partners, also included additional money from existing investors Venrock Associates, Granite Global Ventures and Gabriel Venture Partners. The latest investment brings to $68 million the total amount of funds raised by Boston-Power.&#160;
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Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Tuesday it has begun recalling 6,000 lithium-ion batteries used in Panasonic-brand notebook computers in Japan on concerns they might overheat.
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NEW YORK, September 3 (New Ratings) - IBM (IBM.NYS) has reportedly recalled more than half a million notebook power adapters due to the threat of melting plastic, and electric shock and fire hazards.
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- Japanese electronics maker Sony Corp. 6758.T   on Thursday said it will recall certain lithium-ion notebook   computer batteries following complaints of overheating by some   computer makers.
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Lenovo Group Ltd. (0992.HK) and  IBM  are recalling more than half a million notebook  computer batteries made by Sony Corp. (6758.T) after a computer  caught fire at the Los Angeles International Airport, Lenovo  and U.S. safety officials said on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - In a bid to reassure nervous investorsÂ in the wake of a federal investigationÂ and aÂ battery recall, Dell executives have announced a corporate overhaul dubbed "Dell 2.0." The strategy calls for Dell to recover from slumping profits by making a series of basic changes, such as building factories closer to emerging markets, and putting more emphasis on industrial design, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Rollins said Tuesday in New York at Dell's annual Technology Day. "We've spent the last 22 years following the Dell business model, but as the marketplace changes, the needs and desires of our customers have also changed," Rollins said. "We are re-evaluating every aspect of our business model, from supply chain and design to customer service and support." Dell is suffering through a brutal stretch. The company announced on Monday that it would delay filing its quarterly Form 10-Q because an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had raised the possibility Dell might have to restate past quarterly earnings figures. And in August Dell worked with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall 4.1 million laptop batteries with a defect that could cause them to overheat and possibly catch fire. Under its new plan, the company will form a team of 60 designers by the end of 2006, dedicated to improving the design and usability of Dell PCs instead of focusing solely on price and performance. And the company has already begun to move away from its centralized production model by building PC factories in emerging markets like Brazil, India and Central Europe, he said. In other aspects of the overhaul, Dell said in July it wouldÂ begin using consistently low prices instead of complex rebates, and said in June it would offer enterprise-scale IT management to midsize companies under a Platinum Plus services plan. The strategy extends to products, too. Under the new strategy, Dell will continue to design PCs with chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). Until recently, Dell had used only Intel Corp. processors, but this week launched two AMD-powered desktops and plans to sell AMD-based servers by the end of 2006. Dell's transition to a two-processor company is harder than simply swapping chips, said Chief Technology Officer Kevin Kettler. As Dell engineers create AMD-based PCs, they face a host of challenges -- testing and evaluating the systems, creating a logistics plan to supply processors to factories worldwide, and fitting the new components into their supply chain management plans. "Any time you bring on a new vendor to introduce a major piece of silicon, there's a natural process of aligning the new technology with our products," Kettler said. "I personally have worked for seven years with AMD on Dell's behalf, driving Opteron technology into the server space. This is not a short term, one-product-and-out deal, but a long-term relationship." In another design-centric change, Dell will join Hewlett-Packard Co. and Lenovo Group Ltd. to use DisplayPort, an interface standard that enables high-speed, two-way communications between PCs and displays. The new specs were approved in May by a governing body called the Video Electronics Standards Association. Under current technology, engineers use graphics controllers inside PCs and TVs to send signals to either digital or analog monitors ranging from CRTs (cathode ray tubes) to LCDs (liquid crystal displays) and plasma screens. "Those interfaces all just evolved, so you need to do development over three different interfaces with a multitude of technologies, and you can't take advantage of shared resources," said Kettler. In contrast, the new standard will use PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Express interface to forge a "direct drive" link between the PC and monitor, always keeping the information in digital format. That will allow designers to build displays with embedded cameras and microphones, and will also preserve digital rights management, ensuring that data flowing across the cable can be only displayed, not copied, Kettler said. Â
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TOKYO -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Tuesday it has begun recalling 6,000 lithium-ion batteries used in Panasonic-brand notebook computers in Japan on concerns they might overheat.
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Dell Inc., the world's largest personal computer maker, said Friday that it is increasing the recall of Sony Corp. battery packs used in its systems to 4.2 million units from 4.1 million units.
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The potentially faulty machines were sold under the Lexmark, IBM and Dell brands. The company has recalled these products because they could short circuit and potentially give users an electric shock.