sony even more fucked

selfish · Post by **selfish** » 20 Sep 2006 11:25 am

MORE battery recalls

Toshiba is latest to be affected by Sony-produced notebook batteries. The company announced on Monday that it would recall 340,000 batteries found in its Dynabook and Satellite series notebooks -- 100,000 of which were sold in the United States.

It should be noted that this recall doesn't involve batteries catching fire as in previous recalls. Instead, this recall is related to the battery packs unexpectedly losing power under normal operating conditions. Toshiba says that the affected batteries were produced between March and May of 2006 and free replacements will be offered. Yahoo! Finance reports:

The series of production problems at Sony comes at a crucial time when the Tokyo-based electronics and entertainment company behind the Walkman portable player and PlayStation video game machines has been trying to bolster its brand image under the leadership of its first foreign executive, Welsh-born Howard Stringer.

This latest recall from Toshiba brings the total Sony battery count to more than 6 million following the 1.8 million recalled by Apple and the 4.1 million recalled by Dell.

lestat · Post by **lestat** » 20 Sep 2006 11:35 am

Makes you wonder if the lithium ion batteries used in psp's are affected too.

Seraph · Post by **Seraph** » 20 Sep 2006 11:41 am

6 million faulty batteries? Holy crap. Seriously, how does that sort of thing happen?

mech · Post by **mech** » 20 Sep 2006 11:44 am

Happens all the time, every single Segway ever got recalled the other day.

But yes, Sony is pretty damn screwed with this battery issue atm.

Pat · Post by **Pat** » 20 Sep 2006 11:46 am

Seraph · Post by **Seraph** » 20 Sep 2006 11:47 am

It just boggles the mind, that a production line can output over 6 million faulty products and it's not picked up on.

Peppermint Lounge · Post by **Peppermint Lounge** » 20 Sep 2006 11:53 am

Something Sony's executive team have undoubtedly pondered at length. Imagine the heat under the manger responsible for notebook battery manufacture.

Pat · Post by **Pat** » 20 Sep 2006 11:53 am

They willfully ignored the [] button on PSP ...

GreyWizzard · Post by **GreyWizzard** » 20 Sep 2006 11:54 am

It's odd that some PSTwos don't play all PS2 games...

lestat · Post by **lestat** » 20 Sep 2006 11:55 am

Apparently the knew about it seraph, they just thought the large metal particles that contaminated the batteries were not gonna be a problem or would likely manifest into a problem. That's until people discovered it could lead to the batteries exploding. It's a risk they took a costly one and they're very lucky no one has been killed by it. Otherwise they'd be in a huge amount of shit.

Pat · Post by **Pat** » 20 Sep 2006 11:57 am

Makes you feel so much more confident about PS3 build quality, doesnt it.

mech · Post by **mech** » 20 Sep 2006 12:02 pm

No company is immune to this kind of stuff - how about Microsoft and their massive recall of Xboxes/sending out new power adapters? It's fucked for the company in question, an obscure, innate flaw means they have to spend millions or billions of dollars redoing the whole lot. What a nightmare. Heads would be rolling in the battery section of Sony I'd imagine.

Pat · Post by **Pat** » 20 Sep 2006 12:05 pm

"obscure, innate flaw" ???

It's certainly not innate to the technology involved, plus they apparently knew about it.

mech · Post by **mech** » 20 Sep 2006 12:11 pm

Hey? Easy there Pat.

Innate in the sense that it was in their design, and not a production flaw. And I was talking in general, not in particular to this case. Although in this case it WAS obscure in the sense that it happened incredibly infrequently, but hey.

Pat · Post by **Pat** » 20 Sep 2006 12:12 pm

I thought it was a contamination issue?

mech · Post by **mech** » 20 Sep 2006 12:15 pm

Jesus, this stuff sounds damn dangerous, if they knew about it and the potential for user harm, it's very irresponsible to not have done anything:

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... 201115.php

Pat · Post by **Pat** » 20 Sep 2006 12:19 pm

Tonight at Six: "BluRay diode triggers runaway chain reaction. Product recall a possibility."

selfish · Post by **selfish** » 20 Sep 2006 12:32 pm

Nobody would criticize a renowned architect's blueprint that the position of a gate is wrong. It's the same as that.

lestat · Post by **lestat** » 20 Sep 2006 12:56 pm

selfish wrote:Nobody would criticize a renowned architect's blueprint that the position of a gate is wrong. It's the same as that.

Talez · Post by **Talez** » 20 Sep 2006 01:22 pm

Pat wrote:Tonight at Six: "BluRay diode triggers runaway chain reaction. Product recall a possibility."

Shit. They're on to us. Just act cool, man.

Twit · Post by **Twit** » 20 Sep 2006 01:25 pm

Peppermint Lounge wrote:Something Sony's executive team have undoubtedly pondered at length. Imagine the heat under the manger responsible for notebook battery manufacture.

Yeah, they'll probably have to promote him out of the way.

mech wrote:No company is immune to this kind of stuff - how about Microsoft and their massive recall of Xboxes/sending out new power adapters?

I was quite impressed with MS on that one. Wasn’t it something completely pissy – like some dickhead left their box on for 42 years in one hit and the power supply brick got…oh my god…hot! I never bothered with a replacement for my original Xbox because I’d bought a new one and modded it – the old one was just sitting around. The new ones didn’t have the problem and I never left it on for days anyway. But Microsoft tracked me down, cornered me in an alley, and forced me to accept a new power supply (they sent one to me after I failed to respond to any of their letters).

Peppermint Lounge · Post by **Peppermint Lounge** » 20 Sep 2006 04:02 pm

Haha. Same. The suckers wouldn't leave me alone. I finally accepted their replacement cord just to shut them up. Pretty impressive work from MS there.

Twiztid Elf · Post by **Twiztid Elf** » 20 Sep 2006 06:42 pm

Peppermint Lounge wrote: Imagine the heat under the manger responsible for notebook battery manufacture.

Nah, promotion and payrise certain.