If you have a Dell laptop - combined from 3 forums

[Final 3 Greens]

Dell has isued a recall for approximately 4 million laptop batteries.

This is because there is a remote risk of fire.

This is the last thing that we need in an aircraft, so please take this recall seriously.

To check whether your battery needs to be replaced, use the following link.

https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/Default.aspx

[PAXboy]

In the Sticky thread, this was raised and Man-on-the-fence replied:
I work in IT and had to make a service call for one of these today, the Bod on the end of the phone says it is suspected that this may happen while charging. So unlikely to happen at Security.

[Final 3 Greens]

PAXboy

That may be spot on, but equally a lot of medium and long haul aircraft seats can power laptops (e.g. BA WT+, C, F) and others have charging stations in economy.

So the main concern, at least from my perspective, is an in flight fire.

Probably very low probability, but potentially high severity.

2 mins using the Dell link will deal with this risk - did it myself today, my battery is not affected.

[derekvader]

PAXboy

That may be spot on, but equally a lot of medium and long haul aircraft seats can power laptops (e.g. BA WT+, C, F) and others have charging stations in economy.

So the main concern, at least from my perspective, is an in flight fire.


If you look at the instructions for in-seat power, e.g. in the in-flight magazines, or on the packaging that comes with any of the adaptors that plug into the airline seats, it generally says to remove the battery from your laptop when using airline power.

[Final 3 Greens]

Derek

That's great advice, but what is the problem with people just sorting their Dell batteries out?

Then there is no problem.

There have been some nasty incidents, which may or may not have been caused by charging the laptop.

Aviation safety is everone's responsibility.

[derekvader]

Derek
That's great advice, but what is the problem with people just sorting their Dell batteries out?
Then there is no problem.
There have been some nasty incidents, which may or may not have been caused by charging the laptop.
Aviation safety is everone's responsibility.

Well hold on a sec there. Dell (and other manufacturers such as IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba etc) manufacture their laptops and power supplies such as to expect a 110V or 220V supply. Now Dell do make an optional extra car/airline-specific replacement power supply designed for the 12V/(15V?) that in-car and in-seat power supplies offer, but very few people actually use them, they all go for the dodgy (and more expensive) Kensington and Belkin 3rd-party adaptors, probably because that's all that Dixons in the terminal stock.

I'm really not sure you can start to pin blame for any airline laptop incidents past present or future on laptop manufacturers, unless the incident did involve the laptop manufacturer's own brand proper airline power supply and the battery had been taken out in accordance with the instructions (the airline power generally does not supply enough current to both run the laptop and charge the battery, that's why they say to take the battery out). Rather, it is the user's fault for using the laptop with some other company's power supply on a much lower input voltage than the thing was designed to operate on.

I see the Dell battery problem as being pretty much irrelevant to air travel.

[Final 3 Greens]

Derek

Please read the following extracts from the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/15/MNG5KKIPQ51.DTL

But a number of recent fires involving notebook computers, some aboard planes, have brought renewed scrutiny.

Dell has reported to the safety agency that it documented six instances since December in which notebooks overheated or caught fire. None of the incidents caused injuries or death. Dell said the problems were a result of a manufacturing defect in batteries made by Sony.

Dell has been bedeviled by reports of burning laptops in recent months. In June, a Dell notebook burst into flames during a conference in a hotel in Osaka, Japan. In July, firefighters in Vernon Hills, Ill., were called to an office of Tetra Pak, a food processing and packaging company, to extinguish a notebook fire hot enough to burn the desk beneath it.

That same month, a Dell notebook in the cab of a pickup parked alongside Lake Mead in Nevada caught fire, igniting ammunition in the glove box and then the gas tanks. The truck exploded. Fortunately ammunition is unikely to sit next to a computer in the overhead bins.

A single battery also caught fire in the overhead luggage bin of a Lufthansa passenger jet about to depart from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago in May. Note that this was NOT a Dell battery.

Now all I am suggesting is that it is easy and sensible for Dell users to visit this site
https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/Default.aspx

And check whether their machine's battery is subject to replacement.

It takes a minute.

After that, there will be one of two outcomes:

1 - the battery will not require replacement (like mine), no need to worry

2 - the battery will require replacement and there is a process to deal with that

That's all. I really don't care what you think about Kensington and Belkin products (although they and their lawyers, to say nothing of Danny might.) It is far from certain whether the problems are occuring when the laptop is connected to external power or not.

A little like powering down mobiles before flight, this seems like a no brainer action to support flight safety.

But then what do I know about fires and their effects......

..... apart from 57 people dying with a few metres of me at a football match.

I don't even wish to think about the consequences of a serious cabin fire, especially when a small amount of effort can mitigate it.

[Conan the Librarian]

Apparently it is so - Dell owners check the Dell site for more guff and see what it means for you. No jokes about any charge involved please:ok:
Conan

[Man-on-the-fence]

Sounds like I was given duff gen on the phone BY DELL!

Worrying.

[Loose rivets]

Under the circumstances, I'll post this on R & N rather than the computer forum. Just to add to the chaos.

NY Times daily e-mail report.

"Dell is recalling 4.1 million notebook computer batteries because they could erupt in flames, the company said yesterday. It will be the largest safety recall in the history of the consumer electronics industry, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said."

They also said that they were made by Sony.

I don't really want one of these to go off in the cabin, but in the hold??!!


To anyone that has not seen one of these explosions, it is dramatic in the extreme, with a meter wide fireball that can gut the interior of a car in a few seconds.

EDIT:

Trying to cope with such a fire is dangerous...there can be repeated secondary explosions due to the numerous cells.