Toshiba Offers Exchange of 340,000 Faulty Notebook Batteries

Toshiba is not recalling but rather "offering to exchange" a total of 340,000 notebook batteries. Toshiba emphasizes there is no overheating or fire risk with these batteries, such as with the Dell and Apple recall, but rather the faulty batteries may cause the computer to randomly shut down causing loss of unsaved work.

The list of affected batteries can be found on the Toshibawebsite. Popular laptops such as the Toshiba Satellite A100, Satellite M100, Tecra A7 and Satellite M50 may be affected. Tuesday's recall affects 100,000 laptop batteries in the U.S., 45,000 in Japan, and the rest in other parts of the world.

The faulty batteries, made by Sony, might fail to charge correctly, causing the power to cut off suddenly if the notebook is not connected to a mains outlet, said Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori. Toshiba's batteries are not at risk of starting a fire, Ohmori said. "There is no such hazardous or related issue."

The battery problem stems from a defect in the interface circuitry between the battery cells and notebook. That defect is caused by corrosion, said a spokesman for Sony, the manufacturer of the batteries. An ingredient used in the insulating paper of batteries manufactured between March and Mayof 2006 can corrode components in the batteries' charging circuits, causing them to fail, said Sony spokesman Takashia Uehara. The supplier changed the composition of the insulating paper without notice, he said.

Batteries made for other notebook manufacturers also contained the paper, and Sony is working with those companies to see whether there is a problem, Uehara said. He declined to say how many batteries were affected overall.

Last month Dell and Apple had major recalls on lithium-ion batteries due to concerns of overheating and fire from faulty batteries.

Below is a table of potentially affected notebooks, visit Toshiba.com for more information and instructions for testing to see if your notebook is affected:

Model Name	Model Number	Cells
Satellite A100	PSAA0*, PSAA1*, PSAA2*, PSAA5*	4/6R
Satellite A100	PSAA8*, PSAA9*	6N/12N
Tecra A7	PTA70*, PTA71*	6N/12N
Satellite Pro A100	PSAA3*	4/6R
Equium A100	PSAA4*	4/6R
Satellite M70	PSM70*, PSM71*, PSM73*	4/6R
Satellite Pro M70	PSM75*, PSM76*	4/6R
Equium M70	PSM77*	4/6R
Satellite M50	PSM53*	4/6R
Satellite Pro M50	PSM55*	6R
Equium M50	PSM59*	6R
Satellite M100	PSMA2*	4/6R
Satellite M100	PSMA0*, PSMA1*	6N
Tecra A6	PTA60*	6N

 

Toshiba too? I guess it was just a matter of time.

 

nice spin from toshiba, especially from Sony trying to find a scapegoat.

 

Regardless of Sony putting the “blame” on a supplier, they are still responsible for checking the validity of that supplier’s product. In the end, the batteries are by Sony, and they are responsible for anything contained within their product, regardless of source. What blows my mind is how all of these battery issues got by Sony’s quality control. One would assume they did “real-world” testing on the batteries that are now causing all of the recent issues. I wonder if Sony used a third party contractor to do the quality control testing…

It seems like Toshiba is taking a different approach to this battery problem. They may have been lucky that none of their Sony batteries have caused an explosion and are taking action before that happens.

 

True. I'll say this though, the battery manufacturing business doesn't sound like one I'd want to be in. Apparently a lot can go wrong with the making of a battery if proper quality control and inspection is not done, but more inspection = more expense. More expense = less likelihood a manufacturer will buy your battery.

 

it will probably start coming down to less QA = less purchase orders from laptop makers.

if this battery problem becomes a bigger issue (in which it might have already), i could see manufacturers spending a little extra in exchange for batteries that aren't bombs in the making.

personally, i'd like to see people requesting non-Sony batteries on their laptop orders. that might send a message too.

 

hahaha...yes! i just checked and my nc8430 notebook has an LG battery!

 

One would also assume that it's not to Toshiba's (or Dell's, or Apple's, or any other laptop manufacturer's) best interest to send a bunch of their newest design laptops to Sony and let Sony engineers have fun doing so called "real-world" testing and explore the strength and weakness of their laptop design.

While Sony should have internal quality control and there is no doubt that there is issue there, the truly rigorous system quality check that reflects real world can only be conducted when the battery is put into a laptop and there is just no way a component supplier -- which Sony is in this case, despite it has its own laptop business -- can perform system quality check. The ownership of the quality of the final product, which is the laptop plus the battery, is in Toshiba (or Dell, or Apple, or any other brand).

For Toshiba (or Dell or Apple or any other brand), disclosing these defected batteries are Sony batteries serves no real benefit to their customers or the consumers in general -- it's not like you are recalling every single battery made by Sony, you still have to check whether your battery needs to be recalled by serial number and whether it's made by Sony or some one else makes no difference at all. It is purely a marketing ploy to give bad press to their competitor, that's all -- despite the fact that they are just a component supplier in this case.

 

No matter what you say, ALL these defective batteries are from Sony. Dell, Apple, and Toshiba use batteries from other manufacturers with no problems, and all of them (plus possibly IBM/Lenovo) have problems with Sony batteries.

I think it's pretty obvious whose fault it is.

 

Between the rootkit fiasco and the battery problems, it's been kind of a rough year for Sony. Totally different divisions, managers, executives, etc., but it's all bad from a branding perspective.

 

It's definitely Sony's fault, there's very little to debate there. This has been blown way out of proportion though. A tiny fraction of 1% of the batteries have had issues. That's probably within the spec Sony agreed to. Nevertheless, they'll end up eating it big on this deal. Hopefully future products will be better.

 

Interesting "pro-active" action taken by Toshiba.

It's been tough for Sony as of late. It's pretty apparent that whatever marketing/design geniuses were around for them in the 80's are long gone. Their products used to sell just because of the name. Remember "It's a Sony"?

This battery issue is going to be a huge kick in the teeth for them financially and is also going to result in another step down from the "elite" status they had 20 years ago in the consumers' eyes.

 

How can I find out who made my notebook's (HP nc6400) battery? I tried looking in the system information folder but I didn't see it there. Can someone please fill me in. Thanks!

 

Yes, but just like Sony is responsible for its supplier, Apple, Dell, Toshiba and who knows else are also responsible for Sony's faults. They should've checked if Sony had a decent manufacturing process, QA, decent supply chain all the way down.