Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 5th Gen Laptop Recall | Hacker News Reader

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 5th Gen Laptop Recall

support.lenovo.com

21 pointsryanlol4 comments

Here's the reason for the recall:

Q10. What exactly is the cause of this problem? Lenovo’s investigation and analysis determined that an unfastened, small screw, left in the unit during manufacture, could damage the surface of the lithium ion polymer battery and cause a short, leading to rapid cell discharge of the battery. This defect has led to three failures in the field. Lenovo has not received any reports of a fire.

  Q9. How did you discover this problem?
  Lenovo has received three customer reports worldwide of 
  overheating which resulted in damage to the PC. Lenovo has 
  received no reports of damage to persons or property, other 
  than to the laptop PCs.

There is something missing here. Three people reported that their machines overheated and Lenovo went all-in on a lab investigation and CPSC recall?

IIRC, it's not necessarily the extent of the damage reported thus far, but the possibility of future litigations as the result of more wide-spread damage, etc that would drive a recall like this. They obviously deemed it too risky to keep the current systems in the field. Not every company is going to wait until the world burns before being forced into making a recall for a defective product.

I got a peek at the recall instructions, for those inclined to check themselves: https://twitter.com/JustinFrankel/status/962056021156945920

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