Half a million Vaio laptops prone – Ed hardy t-shi
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According to PCWorld, Sony is announcing that more than half a million Vaio notebook computers are prone to overheating due to a bug in the BIOS software. It’s unclear how severe the overheating could get — whether damage could occur to the machine or to its surroundings — but it’s not a warning to take lightly. To date the overheating has not caused any significant property damage beyond the laptop itself, with 39 cases of the problem now on record, PCWorld reports.
The news comes on the heels of a similar revelation by Dell, which became embroiled in a lawsuit over faulty computers that the company said had overheated because they were “overtaxed” by being made to “perform difficult math calculations,” the New York Times reports. Later that diagnosis was revised: Millions of computers had been sold in the 2000s “riddled with faulty electrical components that were leaking chemicals and causing the malfunctions.”
Those computers, sold as late as 2005, are probably all retired by now. But the Sony laptops are new,Baby Phat, all sold this year.
Most of the models are Japanese, but several were sold elsewhere, including 260,000 units sold in the U.S. The updates are limited to Vaio models F and C, which hit the market in January. If you have a laptop with the model number VPCCW25FG/B, VPCCW25FG/P, or VPCCW25FG/W, check this Web page for update instructions — although actually, if you have any laptop with a model number beginning with VPCF11 or VPCCW2, it’d be a good idea to check that page to make sure your machine is not affected. You’ll also find a toll-free number there to help walk you through the update process if you run into trouble.
The American Consumer Product Safety Commission has reportedly asked the company to recall the products, but Sony has so far balked, saying the issue can be fixed remotely.
— Christopher Null is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.
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First they made our batteries melt down and explode. Now they’re coming directly for our laptops.
