Turn Up the Heat: Dell to Recall Millions of Laptop Batteries

Dell Inc. said today it will recall 4.1 million notebook computer batteries because they can overheat and catch fire. No idea if this is related to earlier stories on Dell laptops catching fire but 4.1 million is a ton of batteries.

The batteries were made by Sony (ha, another negative Sony story!) and were shipped between April 1, 2004, and July 18, 2006. Ouch! The article mentions XTS, but I'll bet they mean XPS and that means my XPS Gen 2 will most likely be affected. What a pain.

Update: woo-hoo! I have two batteries and both missed the cut, so to speak. No recall for my batteries.

Recall instructions are available at https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/Default.aspx

It's not surprising this is happening. The stories about the initial sets of fires, as well as Dell knowing about the problems with burning and charring long before the 2005 recall of batteries have really stained Dell's reputation. It is humorous to see Sony take another hit at the same time, though.