Sony battery-run laptop fire investigated

Lenovo Group is investigating an incident in which a laptop PC equipped with a Sony battery went on fire.

Lenovo Group is investigating an incident in which a laptop PC equipped with a Sony battery went on fire.

A Lenovo Thinkpad T43 notebook computer overheated and began smoking and sparking on September 16th at Los Angeles International Airport, but no one was injured, a Lenovo spokesman in Tokyo said.

It was not yet clear what caused the malfunction.

The incident came after Dell and Apple last month recalled almost six million Sony-made batteries, saying they could produce smoke and catch fire.

READ MORE

The Lenovo notebook PC that caught fire was using the same type of Sony battery that was a target of Dell and Apple Computer recalls, the Lenovo spokesman said.

A Sony spokesman said the company is co-operating with Lenovo, the world's third-largest personal computer maker, in investigating the cause of the incident, but added that Sony has not determined that the laptop in question was loaded with a Sony battery.

Shares in Sony were down 1.1 per cent at 4,720 yen in afternoon trade, roughly in line with the Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index.