Sony recalls laptop batteries

It's time to check the batteries on your office laptops. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced that computer makers are recalling 100,000 laptop battery packs made by Sony Corp. after 40 reports of overheating. 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. According to Sony, some incidents involved smoke or flames. Twenty-one of the reports claimed minor property damage, and small burns were reported in four cases.

Sony said the problems resulted from manufacturing adjustments it made from October 2004 to June 2005 which may have affected the quality of cells in certain production lots. The latest recall is minor compared to the nearly 10 million units of a different model of Sony batteries in 2006 and 2007 that were defective.

For more on Sony's battery troubles:
- see this San Francisco Chronicle article

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