New Information on the Battery Recall

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

Ron — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:51:01 GMT

Concerning the following comment in a previous reply on this subject.....

There is no power applied to the battery contacts when no battery is present. This is NOT an issue.

We have a battery presence pin on the battery that the system looks for to verify that a battery is physically inserted in the battery compartment. The system uses that to verify a battery is inserted, then will query it to determine that it is a genuine dell battery, and then IF needed will begin charging. So there are 3 levels of check that are done before any power is applied to the battery compartment or the battery contacts.

I have a Dell Inspiron E1405 that runs on and re-charges the battery as expected. However, the BIOS does not recognize a battery is present, so there is no power management. Can anyone tell me which pin is the "battery presence" pin on the battery? It is a Y9943 battery. Or is this more likely a motherboard issue?

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

kcm associates — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:19:41 GMT

wanted a new laptop (inspiron 630m) battery(y9943, rating 11.1v,cappasity-53wh)

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

gbakmars — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:24:57 GMT

I have been pleading for answers to these questions. Can you help LIONEL?
XPS 700: 4 "YES OR NO" QUESTIONS BEFORE BUYING:

YES OR NO Is the chipset in the XPS 700 what is advertised, the nVidia 590?

YES OR NO Will the nVidia 590 in the XPS 700 do all that the nVidia website boasts?

YES OR NO Will the XPS 700 support the soon to be released Intel Kentsfield Quad Core CPU?

YES OR NO Will the XPS 700 motherboard be upgradable to a new board to take care of the 3 NO answers above?

YES OR NO I ask anyone that is waiting for their long over due shippment if these are very reasonable and legitimate questions that anyone buying a $5000 machine should ask?

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

Lionel_Menchaca — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:32:52 GMT

George, in response to your concern about an exposed electrical connector, here's the feedback I received from our notebook engineering team:

There is no power applied to the battery contacts when no battery is present. This is NOT an issue.

We have a battery presence pin on the battery that the system looks for to verify that a battery is physically inserted in the battery compartment. The system uses that to verify a battery is inserted, then will query it to determine that it is a genuine dell battery, and then IF needed will begin charging. So there are 3 levels of check that are done before any power is applied to the battery compartment or the battery contacts.

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

Michael M — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 08:27:55 GMT

Plz Dell. Be innovative and use similar technologies e.g. Lenovo is using!! => called Thinkvantage Technology
Proprietary software that shuts down the system when it overheats is being used by companies such as Lenovo (in its Thinkvantage suite)
Its easy to offer cheap PCs, but its not so easy to invest in quality and offer innovative systems!!

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

George Rankin — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 18:53:44 GMT

This is one of those cases where the percentages do not matter. Even one product that explodes under normal use is too many for a responsible company to live with. The products that I worked on had a defect category rating where priority "1" was "customer gets incorrect answer/corrupted data." "Product explodes" is a whole different universe...

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

George Rankin — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 18:48:50 GMT

First off, I want to thank Dell and the teams that are working to resolve this problem. I used to work in the tech industry, and know what a fire drill you guys are going through.

I have a few concerns about the process. The first problem is that for 20 days I'm going to have a non-portable laptop. I am no longer in the tech industry, but that would have been more than a minor inconvenience for me back in the day. Now if somebody trips over the cord, I lose work. Not a good thing.

A more major concern is that I am now typing on a laptop with an exposed electrical connector on my lap. This thing is designed to energize a battery, how remote are the odds that it will energize my lap? I'm sure that there is some fail-safe circutry in the system, but it is not engineered for continuous exposure. (Simply looking at the connector tells me that the engineers were not thinking that the battery would be out of the machine for very long.) You now have tens of thousands of customers who are running the computer in a configuration that it is not designed for. This could be a problem.

Finally, the NYT article indicates that the suspected fault is a short circut in one of the cells. If this is indeed the case, then I will be interested to see how we are supposed to return the old cells to Dell. Under this scenario, the battery could explode even if it is not connected to an AC power source -- especially if the battery is shaken. USPS regulations are pretty strict about shipping explosives.

Anyway, good luck and best wishes.

George

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

Graeme Smith — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 03:30:13 GMT

We are a Dell Solution Provider - we resell a lot of laptops. It would have been nice to get a heads up on this today before we started reading about it in the media AFTER the customers - who read it before us - started calling........ Sigh.

Lithium Ion Batteries - They are a high energy density package of trouble - as those of us who fly radio control aircraft know. Charging recommendations (for the admittedly less well made) LiPo's includes charging inside a ceramic fireproof container! I'm not saying don't use them - just that they are up there in risk terms....

re: New Information on the Battery Recall

Erik Larkin — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:01:22 GMT

Is the cited percentage calculation incorrect? 4.1 million is 16.5 percent of 24.9 million, not 14 percent...

Defining Tranparency

Boyd Neil — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 17:51:46 GMT

First a mild mea culpa. . . In the description of my intentions for this blog, I make reference to "transparency"...