Important! Dell Battery Recall
 

So you've heard about Dell laptop batteries exploding and stuff. It apparently affects something like 4.1 million Dell laptops made with Sony batteries, so thats quite the recall. If you have a Dell laptop, be sure to see if you're battery needs a recall.

https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/Default.aspx

My filled it all out and it said that my 700m needs a replacement, so they're mailing me one :neat:

Damn, I bought my laptop in late may and to my surprise its not part of the recall :(.

Oh well. I guess I should spread the word to all the other dell laptop owners I know. Thanks for the link pom.

I read about that. Sucks pretty hard; nobody was expecting something like that from Dell computers, but I read that the batteries came from Sony anyway, so it won't be such a big financial problem for Dell since they will be able to take regress.

You mean they don't take your old one?!?!?!?

Well why would they go through the trouble of getting 4 million people to mail them bad batteries and then have nothing to run their laptop on when they can just send you a new one.

Could you even imagine how Dell would react to having 4.1 million batteries come through the mail.

I'm wondering if any other companies are using these Sony made battaries/bombs and if they are going to issue a recall as well. I think I read someplace that Apple and HP used the batteries as Dell (I hope my Toshiba is safe).

My Dell 9100 is one of the computers using recalled batteries, although mine was made in Taiwan, so I'm safe. Good though, because dealing with this would have been a pain from Saudi Arabia :tpg:

I've seen the stories of exploding Apples too. They also have certain power adapters that will spontaneously catch fire due to a design flaw (rather than poor assembly). Then there are the swollen batteries, overheating, poorly mounted heatsinks, tape left over vent holes etc. Premium my ass. This is what happens when the big manufacturers cut corners to squeeze that extra bit of profit out of their loyal customers.

Yeah, I was not very happy when I heard about this. I counted off the top of my head 52 laptops that I manage that are likely to be affected by this. It is going to be fun for me here soon.

Got lucky over here, mine wasn't part of the recall so whew lol.

I was reading an article in the newspaper today about this. It's supposedly not only the Sony Lithium Ion batteries in the laptops, but in a variety of devices like cellphones and mp3 players.

There was a picture of an exploded laptop in a car, and the entire interior of the car was just incinerated... it looked pretty cool.

I wonder if this is only in the Dells, I doubt it. I haven't opened my Toshiba Satellite yet to see if it has the Sony battery, but it damn sure has Lithium Ion and I better get a nice replacement.

I have an Inspiron from that time period, but it has a Taiwanese-made battery, so I guess I'm safe from the menace of exploding laptops.

To be honest, I wouldn't have minded getting a free spare battery, though...this one doesn't last long enough!

Does anyone know what's actually causing the batteries to explode?

"Under rare conditions, it is possible for these batteries to overheat, which could pose a risk of fire."

I'll assume poor design.
EDIT: See next post for elaboration. :p

From what I've read, in normal lithium ion batteries there's a basic battery powered by electrons migrating from the anode to the cathode [+ and -] and during the manufacturing process some small fragments of metal were left in the battery which can cause sparks and cause the laptop to explode.

We should all use fuel cells.:)

Bumping a dead thread, but a fuel cell is the same thing as a battery except that it's non-rechargable, you need to continually feed it either the reagent on the anode or cathode side. :sci101:

I ordered mine on the 14th and they said 20 business days but i haven't gotten one yet :(

Well they still have 9 more business days to make good.

So far I have heard back from 18 of my laptop users after I sent them an email about this and 10 are affected, while 8 are not. And my laptop is among the affected.