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Hardware Lenovo and IBM ThinkPad Batteries Recalled
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - September 29, 2006 12:38 AM

18 comment(s) - last by jediknight.. on Oct 2 at 2:24 AM

A week after the first fire, Lenovo recalls affected models

Lenovo and IBM are recalling ThinkPad notebook batteries due to fire hazards. Only 168,500 battery packs in the US are affected, but this does not count the additional 375,500 batteries sold worldwide.

The affected batteries are manufactured by Sony like the recalled Apple, Dell and Toshiba notebook batteries. Notebooks equipped with the affected batteries include ThinkPad T43, T43p, T60, R51e, R52, R60, R60e, X60 and X60s models produced by IBM and Lenovo between February 2005 and September 2006. The following part numbers are included in the recall:

Affected Batteries
ASM P/N	FRU P/N
92P1072	92P1073
92P1088	92P1089
92P1142	92P1141
92P1170	92P1169 or 93P5028
92P1174	92P1173 or 93P5030

There haven’t been any other incidents since an IBM ThinkPad burst into flames at LAX last week. Nevertheless, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission suggests owners of affected units should stop using the batteries immediately. Lenovo will replace affected batteries free-of-charge. Until a new battery arrives it is suggested users use their laptops while plugged in with the battery removed.

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RE: Why can't we standardize batteries?

By vanka on 9/29/2006 5:25:53 PM , Rating: 2

The reason for the non-standard batteries is the different placement of internal components. A battery usually resides in the part of a notebook in which has free space; the shape and location of this space is dictated by the arrangement of the internal components. In this notebook batteries are similar to the fuel tanks in cars, it is easier for the manufacturers to redesign a battery/fuel tank that fits around the other parts than to re-engineer the other components to fit around the battery/fuel tank. A battery is after all nothing other than a collection of cells enclosed in plastic, shuffling the cells around is probably not a big deal.

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