Sony battery sparked during recall
Fujitsu engineer spots exploding battery
By Nick Farrell: Monday 30 October 2006, 06:59
A FUJITSU ENGINEER who was called around to a punter's house to
pick up a Sony battery as part of the company recall got a bit more
than he bargained for.
According to a spokesFujitsu the engineer was retrieving the laptop
when it started to overheat and started to spew forth sparks.
The laptop's owner received minor injuries in the incident, which
is under investigation, the spokesFujutsu said. We must wonder why
anyone needed to turn on the computer to retrieve the battery in
the first place.
Fujitsu is recalling more than 280,000 lithium-ion laptop batteries
made by Sony because microscopic metal particles left inside the
battery, can cause them to short circuit. There have been several
cases of the batteries overheating and bursting into flames.
Fujitsu admits its laptop 'overheated and
sparked'
By Tony Smith
30th October 2006 10:06 GMT
A Fujitsu-made notebook has caught fire in Japan, the manufacturer
admitted late last week. The incendiary incident is the first of
its kind to be be officially recognised in a machine lacking a
Dell, Apple or ThinkPad logo, and should sound a warning to other
vendors caught up in this year's massive battery recall.
Fujitsu was notified of the notebook's self-combustion on 24
October, it said, after a customer reported their machine
"overheated and sparked". An investigation revealed the laptop had
contained a Sony-made battery covered by the recall Fujitsu put in
place on 4 October.
Fujitsu said the event was the "first and only" report of its kind
it has received, and that the incident was an "extremely rare
case".
Nonetheless, it warned all notebook users whose laptops may be
included in the battery recall - full details here -
http://www.fujitsu.com/global/news/pr/n20061017-01.html?www.reghardware.co.uk
should remove the battery from their machines immediately, "unless
absolutely necessary".
To date, many notebook vendors who've recalled Sony-made batteries
claim to have received no reports of their machines going up in
smoke. Fujitsu's admission suggests that they've simply been more
lucky than some of the firms who initiated early battery recalls.
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