Companies recall 100,000 laptop battery packs

Computer makers are recalling 100,000 laptop battery packs made by Sony Corp. after 40 reports of overheating, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

 The voluntary recall applies to certain
Sony 2.15Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan and sold around
the world in laptops made by Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and
Toshiba Corp.

Some incidents involved smoke or
flames, according to Sony. Twenty-one of the reports claimed minor
property damage, and small burns were reported in four cases.

Sony blamed two factors for the
defects: adjustments on its manufacturing line from October 2004 to
June 2005, which may have affected the quality of cells in certain
production lots; and a possible flaw in the metal foil for
electrodes.

In this batch of problematic laptops,
the bulk of the 35,000 affected computers in the U.S. were sold by HP
between December 2004 and June 2006, according to the safety
commission, including HP Pavilion, HP Compaq and Compaq Presario
models.

Some Dell Latitude and Inspiron models
shipped between November 2004 and November 2005 are also covered by
the recall, as well as some Toshiba Satellite and Tecra laptops sold
from April 2005 to October 2005.

An additional 65,000 of the flawed
batteries were sold outside the U.S. The PCs and separate batteries
were sold directly by the computer manufacturers, electronics stores
and online retailers worldwide, not by Sony.

Sony said its own Vaio laptops don't
use the battery in question. Last month, however, the company
recalled 440,000 Vaio notebooks worldwide because of a wiring flaw
that can cause overheating.