Dell plans to announce a recall of 4.1 million batteries worldwide.

Dell has identified a potential issue associated with certain batteries sold with Dell Latitude™, Inspiron™, XPS™ and Dell Precision Mobile Workstation™ notebook computers.

Here's a list of the affected models:
Latitude: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810
Inspiron: 6000, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 500m, 510m, 600m, 6400, E1505, 700m, 710m, 9400, E1705
Dell Precision: M20, M60, M70 and M90 mobile workstations
XPS XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170 and XPS M1710

Have your battery pack's serial number handy before you visit this special Web site Dell has set up:
http://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/

On Dell's Web site, you can enter your entire serial number to check if you need a new battery. That page will also link you to an order form for a new battery and let you know how to send the old battery back to Dell for proper disposal.

All the best

I saw a report on BBC world that was filmed by someone on thier phone at a conference..all these business men were sitting down watching a presentation when someones Dell explodes and catches fire in a big way causing them all to run away from it!!

There were romours for ages that these batteries were not good but heres the proof!

Yeah, I saw that too a while ago. Very funny.
I've fried 3 dells. Had the infamous SmartStep 200n. First time there was really something wrong with it and the keyboard melted. They sent me a new one and it kept overheating and dying when I wanted to play games it should have been able to do like Empire Earth (awesome). I had to put a tupperware full of water in the freezer and then under my computer . Anyway, I got it replaced with the 5150 I have now, only the motherboard fried about 1/2 year ago and I had to have the board replaced. Moral - if you're going to buy a Dell, stick with a desktop!

I almost wish that I bought my Dell 600m 6 months later than I did. Then I would have been able to replace the battery. The battery on my laptop sucks and lasts only like 45 minutes without a charge. I also mistakenly bought an additional primary battery thinking that it was a modular bay one....pwnt.

Good news is that my laptop didn't make my house burst into flames.

So far i know the problem battery use by dell is produce by sony. is that means that other labtop battery produce by sony also in danger... we cant wait till the battery burn.... how to check?

i saw this on the bbc aswell, although the batteries did come from sony in the 1st place, you cant 100% blaim dell
i also heard this could damage there company alot.

Well, the problem with saying that the battery is produced by Sony is that what does Dell produced anyway? As far as I know, a lot of their stuff is done the OEM way. You can't just say that when the motherboard in your Dell desktop computer fried, you go and blame some Taiwanese OEM manufacturer. Hey, if someone wants to blame the parts manufacturer, they go buy some unbranded computer in the first place.

BUT.... that's why you'll go and bust double the cash on a brand name, because of its supposed superior quality control, servicing, etc. So it's pretty lame that Dell didn't catch this sooner. I find it hard to believe that either they didn't do any quality control testing, or that if they did, not one of the models tested showed signs of extreme overheating. Or does testing now mean pushing the power button and seeing if all the lights come on? What would be real classic, and maybe not so possible since the latest bomb freakout, is if a Dell would explode in flames on a transatlantic flight as the plane is coming into Washington. We'd probably hear next about the "terrorist masquerading as a businessman with his laptop full of solidox" or whatever.
Anyways, I never was such a big fan of Dell.

The same thing was happening to Motorola's cell phone batteries, wasn't it? I remember reading this somewhere, that some people have experienced talking on the cell phone and suddenly it's battery exploded, harming the user and people around. I'm not sure about the explosion's power, but must be reasonable, to even damage surrounding people. Also we must consider that having something exploding close to your ear can't be any pleasant.

Anyway I'm not sure what the heck are engineers doing to these Lithium Ion batteries, but it surely can be unstable if done wrong (I don't believe these were caused by any kind of misuse). Thanks to god I'm more into Nokia and Siemens phones, that Dell computers are quite expensive here in Brazil. =p

Apple is now recalling theirs too. I think this is a new recall, not only the older Powerbook 15" models.