PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
Taiwanese based vendor Acer has announced a global battery replacement programme, involving certain TravelMate and Aspire machines.
It is estimated that 27,000 machines are affected. The specific problems relate to battery packs containing lithium-ion cells manufactured by Sony. As with previous cases affecting Dell, Toshiba and Lenovo, the overheating batteries pose a potential fire hazard. Acer says that the potentially affected notebooks were sold between May 2004 and November 2006.
‘Although there have been no reports of injury or fire involving Acer notebook computers containing the affected Sony battery packs, Acer is offering this free-of-charge battery replacement program to all users who have an affected product,’ said a statement by Acer.
Sony blamed a manufacturing defect for the overheating problem that caused Dell to recall more than four million laptop batteries. The problem was put down to tiny shards of metal being left in the battery cells which sometimes caused a short-circuit leading to overheating.
