LG laptop goes up in flames
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Journalist on the scene in less than seconds A journalist was awoken by a hot news story yesterday: the realisation that his LG Electronics laptop had just exploded.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Eight months after recalling potentially flammable notebook PC batteries, Toshiba is again urging its customers to trade in the defective units, saying one of its notebooks caught fire on May 24. Toshiba was one of many PC vendors that recalled more than 8 million rechargeable lithium-ion batteries made by Sony. A manufacturing defect left those batteries vulnerable to short-circuiting and catching fire if they were jostled, prompting the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to issue a broad recall. Dell was the first to recall those batteriesÂ in August 2006 and was quickly followed by Apple, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Gateway, and Sony. By October 2006, that defect had led to 16 reports of notebook computer batteries overheating, causing minor property damage and two minor burns, according to the Commission. On Tuesday, Toshiba said the latest fire was sparked by a battery that was never returned. "Recently, certain instances occurred where Sony battery packs installed in Toshiba portable computers caught fire," Toshiba said in a statement on its Web site. After an investigation with Sony, Toshiba found that the battery caused "the situation," the statement said. "The original Sony Battery Pack had not been replaced as recommended by Sony and Toshiba. We put importance on the fact that the incidents that occurred involved unreplaced Sony Battery Packs, despite our ongoing replacement program." In the original recall, the Commission warned laptop users to remove the batteries immediately and to power their PCs only by plugging them into a wall outlet until receiving a free replacement battery from the PC manufacturer. Laptop users were responsible for taking the initiative to return their own batteries, leading some analysts to predict that only a small percentage would do so. Other PC vendors may face the same challenge, although the Commission does not list any other fires. Dell is continuing to replace the faulty batteries, but a spokesman said he could not produce figures for the number of batteries replaced or whether the company had noted any overheating incidents since the recall began. "The recall's going well. Customers are taking heed to send back the affected batteries and have replacements sent to them," said Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman. In response to the latest fire, Toshiba warned customers to stop using the affected batteries immediately. Users who continue running their laptops on battery power should not leave their PCs unattended while they charge and should not place PCs on a sofa, bed or other surface that could obstruct its ventilation, Toshiba said. Toshiba has not changed the list of laptops that use the affected batteries. They include various models of the company's Portege, Qosmio, Satellite, and Tecra brand PCs. As with the original recall, Toshiba will replace all affected batteries for free.
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Is that a barbecue in your lap or... When laptop batteries aren't bursting into white-hot flames, incinerating loved-ones, treasured possessions and airline luggage compartments in a ball of fiery plasma â they're right useful products.â¦
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Dell, HP and Lenovo may get burned A fire at Lite-On's main flat-panel monitor factory in China could disrupt LCD display supplies across the PC industry.â¦
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Who's battery was in that ThinkPad? Sony has revealed it is investigating the recent self-immolation of a Lenovo ThinkPad T43 at Los Angeles Airport. The fire was apparently caused by the notebook's battery, which may have been a Sony-made component.â¦
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Japanese manufacturer NEC disclosed Monday that at least two of its desktop computers in Japan have caught fire after the power supply units inside of the computers malfunctioned.
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By JORDAN ROBERTSON  SAN JOSE, Calif. - Your work computer just suffered a major meltdown. Maybe the operating system failed, or a virus crashed the hard drive.
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About 4.4 million now under recall; firm says units can overheat, possibly causing fire or shock. NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Dell Inc.
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Your work computer just suffered a major meltdown. Maybe the operating system failed, or a virus crashed the hard drive.
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A pregnant woman suffered burns in eastern India after the battery of her Nokia mobile phone exploded minutes after she put the handset on charge, police said Saturday.
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Scorcher A 12-year-old boy was yesterday treated in hospital for second-degree burns after his Sony PlayStation Portable apparently spontaneously combusted in his trouser pocket.â¦
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Toshiba urges customers to trade in defective laptops, saying one of its notebooks caught fire on May 24.
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Brave or foolhardy? You decide... An HP notebook was left damaged but not destroyed last week when it became the latest laptop to suffer a battery meltdown - the hasty removal of the power cell prevented a notebook fire like the one that took out a Lenovo ThinkPad two weeks ago. This time the incendiary incident was captured on video.â¦
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Extended-life batteries made by Sanyo and sold by Lenovo as ThinkPad options can overheat after being dropped.
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Lenovo Group Ltd. (0992.HK) and  International Business Machines Corp.  are recalling  about 526,000 Sony Corp. (6758.T) batteries made for ThinkPad  notebook PCs after a computer caught fire at Los Angeles  International Airport, Lenovo and U.S. safety officials said on  Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - Toshiba is recalling a small batch of laptop batteries that could overheat and burn users, a company spokesman said Thursday. About 5,100 Sony-made lithium-ion batteries are defective, spanning 10 models of Toshiba computers, some of which are essentially the same model but carry a different name in different regions, said Manuel Linnig, Toshiba spokesman in Germany. The latest recall involves a different type of battery than in September 2006 when more than 8 million rechargeable lithium-ion batteries made by Sony wereÂ recalled. Those batteries, which were in a range of laptops from Apple, Lenovo Group, Fujitsu Computer Systems, Gateway, Sony Electronics, and Toshiba, suffered a defect that could cause them to short circuit. Most recently, oneÂ laptop caught fireÂ in May due to a battery that had not been replaced. In a worse-case scenario, the defective batteries in this latest recall could cause burns to users, as well as damage the computer, Linnig said. "We had some reports coming from Japan and Australia where they simply got too warm, but nobody got injured, luckily," he said. The batteries were made around December 2005 and installed in laptops between January and April 2006. Five models were sold in Japan, with five others sold outside Japan, Linnig said. Toshiba plans to put a utility application on its Web site in the next day or so that checks if a laptop is vulnerable and informs the consumer, Linnig said. For those who don't want to download an application, a document will be posted so users can identify their batteries by serial number. Affected users can then fill out an online form, and Toshiba will send them a postage-paid envelope to return the defective battery, and the company will then mail them out a new one, Linnig said. Â
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Consumers are being asked to return 526,000 laptop batteries made by Sony Corp. because they could catch fire, the latest in a record-setting recall involving nearly 7 million computers.