Dell to recall 4 million batteries
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lol dell... Thats why i choose Mac
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i just feel that the few units of bad batteries were isolated cases...but its just that the aftermath's so bad that the users have to truely let the world knows. what could be worse than an explosion causing fire but that's just too bad if things come to such ends. guess the battery recall and replacement thing's a temporary containment action. dell has to work harder to maintain their product quality and image.
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Will the Dell Battery appear in that Gayish TV show Myth Busters? Or test it out in a scrap car ? See if they really caused a fire when overheated ?
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When will it be lenovo's turn?
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then really hav to investiagte...unles dell refuses to accept the fact that batteries caught fire overheat and started a fire.Originally posted by NotFromVenus:Will the Dell Battery appear in that Gayish TV show Myth Busters? Or test it out in a scrap car ? See if they really caused a fire when overheated ?
is it possible for a user to push the batterirs to the point of overloading? if sucha thing happen is there any saftey or over-writting hardware/ software in the computer to power down the computer or cut off all operations to contain the possiblility of a prelude to explosion/ fire? was the right design engineered on that/ those notebook models? were the right components/ battery design or specification chosen for that / those notebook models? many things we want to know leh? if its simply a few isolated cases of explosion then all existing QC methods/ parameters may hav to be reviewed and recertified. -
Dell's recall of 4.1 million fire-prone laptop batteries takes the heat off the company for now, but a former Dell technician says Dell has known about the problem for more than two years.
Source: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/08/dell_batteries_history.html
Robert Day, Dell's lead acoustic technician from 1997-2005, said the computer company received hundreds of laptops that were charred or melted as a result of the defective battery, which Dell is now recalling.
Day shared hundreds of photos of laptops with ConsumerAffairs.Com that he downloaded prior to leaving the company in January 2005. His lab was next to the Product Safety Investigations lab (PSI).
Day says Dell tried to hide the problem from the public for years. "They didn't want anyone to know how serious of a problem it was," Day said.
The photos are from one of PSI's technician's archives. By 2005 there were 14 technicians in that lab.
The findings of each lab, including the PSI, were submitted monthly to executives, so Day said there is no way many of the senior executives at Dell have not known about this problem for years.
He said after Dell started using the Sony batteries in 2003, the PSI started receiving so many charred laptops that Day's lab, located next to the PSI, had to store many of the laptops.
Day said he didn't know how many charred laptops Dell received as a result of the batteries, but said it was, "in the hundreds."
Day sent ConsumerAffairs.Com over 300 photographs of about 100 different laptops. It appears that about 12 of those melted laptops were the result of the battery while the rest were from various other electrical shorts and CPU fan failures. He said there were many more battery-burned laptops than that, but he only had access to one technician's archives.
Day now works as a technician for Apple and said he left Dell after he turned in a Dell executive involved in a sex scandal. Dell did not return two phone calls.A published report says Dell might have known about a problem regarding overheating laptop batteries at least two years before the computer goliath issued a safety recall. The company denies it.
Source: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/07/dell_laptop_batteries.html
A person identified as an anonymous Dell insider leaked scores of documents to CRN, a computer industry publication, that indicated Dell knew of a dangerous battery malfunction for two years before a shocking video of an exploding laptop forced the company to recall batteries for about 22,000 laptops.
The source told CRN that the documentation, which included photographs of charred and melted laptops, was distributed to Dell executives years ago.
The documentation showed the following:
• One notebook was charred black for several inches on the bottom corner of the unit, about one-half inch from the system fan;
• Another notebook with a two-inch hole showing where a section of case had melted away, charred black and brown on the bottom of the unit, on the side, about half-way between the fan and the battery;
• More than a dozen notebooks where an inch or two of casing had melted away in the right-hand corner above the keyboard and just below the LCD;
• One system that was melted, mangled and charred black on the bottom corner of a notebook;
• More than one notebook with black charring around the Ethernet port;
• Several units that had melted and warped in the area immediately surrounding the cooling fan;
• Several units that had melted or burned away in the area covering and surrounding the laptop battery unit.
Despite the more than a dozen destroyed laptops mentioned above, in the Dec. 16, 2005 recall, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said, "Dell has received three reports of batteries overheating. The incidents involved damage to a tabletop, a desktop, and minor damage to personal effects. No injuries have been reported."
The ConsumerAffairs.Com database has only one instance of a Dell laptop overheating.
"My laptop overheated enough to lightly burn my leg if not for clothing," wrote George of Inverness, Fla. "I spoke to Dell on several occasions and was told that nothing could be done because the unit was out of warranty. The unit lasted just short of two years after purchase before crashing."
Jess Blackburn, a Dell spokesman, would not say how many burned laptops have been returned.
"Any notebook that's returned to us that would have some kind of potential safety issue associated with it, gets not only our own engineering review but also that of a third party review," Blackburn said.
Blackburn said he can't speak to the accuracy of the CRN article because the author will not share the documentation from the supposed insider.
"I think Ed (the author) was referencing a dozen notebooks over a quarter in which we sold millions," Blackburn said. "But just because they're rare doesn't mean we don't take them seriously."
Consumers with Dell laptops can go to www.dellbatteryprogram.com to see if their laptop is affected and how to get the new battery.
Thats it, I'm staying far away from Dell from now on, especially their laptops