Another news just out from US tech websites.
Dell laptop detonates in UK homeBy Tony Smith
1st September 2006 15:19 GMT
A Leicestershire family was this left in shock after their Dell laptop exploded "like fireworks" and set light to their living room furniture, it was reported this week - just before news broke of Sony's decision to appoint a battery safety officer.
According to a story in the Leicester Mercury, the Allen family of Eskdale Road, Hinckley witnessed the spontaneous combustion of their laptop on 25 July.
The notebook, a Dell Latitude C600, was left alone in the family home to load a game. When the Allens came in to see how it was doing, the machine blew up.
"There are six batteries inside a compartment, and they were shooting out like fireworks, like rockets," Shaun Allen, 39, told the paper. "They even bounced off the ceiling, they went up that high."
The exploding batteries set fire to the sofa and the carpet, the paper reports.
Curiously, the computer had not been bought from Dell but from an unnamed shop in Coventry a year ago. Mr Allen said he paid £500 for the machine. Dell told the paper it believes the battery that burned was not one supplied by the company, but a third-party product. However, it said it would give the Allen's a new machine as a gesture of goodwill.
Last month, Dell formally requested 4.1m customers around the world return batteries shipped with its notebooks sold between 1 April 2004 and 18 July 2006. The recalled lithium-ion batteries were made by Sony, Dell said. A week later, Apple also insituted a recall of batteries manufactured by Sony.
Separately, the Japanese giant today said it was appoint the head of its TV division, Makoto Kogure, to take charge of the company's product quality and safety assurance efforts, a role that will oversee firm's battery manufacturing. However, the company was keen to stress the move was not solely the result of the Dell and Apple recalls.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/01/dell_laptop_combustion_uk/CRASH, BANG! BY SHIRLEY ELSBY
10:15 - 31 August 2006
A family today revealed how they narrowly escaped injury when a laptop computer exploded in their home.
The incident, at a house in Eskdale Road, Hinckley, sent small batteries from the device around the room, setting fire to carpets and a settee.
The family of six, including a 12-year-old boy who had suffered a scalding accident a few days previously, were terrified.
Computer manufacturer Dell recently recalled a range of their laptops after overheating incidents.
Dad Shaun Allen, 39, said the drama experienced by him, his wife, Lyndsey, 29, and their children Nicholas, 12, Joshua, 10, Sophie, six, and Jacob, two, happened weeks before the recall. The offending laptop was a Dell Latitude C600 bought from a shop in Coventry, about a year before for about £500.
Nicholas had been trying to play a game on it but had problems with it.
Mrs Allen then put it on charge on a table while it loaded the game, and all the family went outside.
Mr Allen said: "As we all decided to go back in, the laptop exploded.
"There are six batteries inside a compartment, and they were shooting out like fireworks, like rockets.
"They even bounced off the ceiling, they went up that high.
"I tried to extinguish the laptop and cover it over with a towel. I tried to carry it outside, but it was still exploding and I let go of it.
"As I dropped it, more batteries came out like fireworks. A couple of them hit the ceiling then bounced on the floor. Another one hit the ceiling and set fire to the carpet. My wife was jumping on it to put it out.
!I chucked the laptop outside and went in to put the settee out as that was burning, too."
Helped by a neighbour who is a police officer, Mr and Mrs Allen were able to extinguish the flames themselves.
They said the incident had frightened them all, especially Nicholas, who had spent the previous week being treated at Nottingham City Hospital after being scalded by a kettle of boiling water on holiday on July 18.
He had been allowed home on July 24 and the explosion took place on the following day.
The family's insurance claim has now been settled, enabling Mr and Mrs Allen to talk to the Mercury about the incident.
Dell recently recalled various makes of computer, saying that Dell branded batteries with cells manufactured by Sony could, under rare conditions, overheat.
An investigator examined the Allens' laptop.
A Dell spokesman said that although they believed the battery which exploded was not the original supplied by Dell, the company was supplying a new laptop as a gesture of goodwill for the family's co-operation with the investigation.Good news is that i think Dell service is getting better, at least they supply a new laptop.
