Toshiba Satellite T Series Recall: Watch Out for Melting Notebooks

At the end of August Toshiba announced a voluntary recall of the Satellite T Series Notebooks including the T135, T135D and ProT130 in conjunction with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Canada Health after receiving 129 reports of melting and deforming the plastic case near the power plug.

While no serious injuries where reported the USPC notes that there were two reports of minor burns by the super-hot notebooks. Needless to say, the heat it takes to melt the case is not good for the notebook, nor for your data or the desk you set it on. According to Toshiba the problem lies with a faulty DC-IN harness and users with a Satellite T Series notebook can download a BIOS update which will check to see if their notebook is affected. If your notebook is determined to be at risk of melting the external power will be disabled, meaning that you cannot charge your notebook until you set up a free warranty repair with Toshiba.

If you have important files that you will need access to before the repair can be completed you should copy them to an external hard drive, USB drive, burn them to a CD or upload them to a service like DropBox before your battery drains. You may want to do this before updating your BIOS if you have a large amount of files, but of course you will want to stay next to your notebook and keep a close watch on how hot it is getting.

The Toshiba Satellite T Series notebooks have “Toshiba” on the cover and the model number on the bottom of the device.  The affected Toshiba laptops will have model or part numbers beginning with PST3AU, PST3BU, or PST3LU.

The following Toshiba Satellite models are affected:

Satellite T135D-S1326, T135D-SP2012L, T135-SP2909R, T135D-SP2012M, T135-SP2013L, T135-SP2013M, T135D-S1322, T135-S1330, T135D-S1328WH, T135D-S1328RD, T135D-S1328, T135D-S1327, T135D-S1325WH, T135D-S1325RD, T135D-S1325, T135D-S1324, T135D-S1320, T135-SP2911R, T135-S1312, T135-S1310WH, T135-S1310RD, T135-S1310, T135-S1309, T135-S1307, T135-S1305WH, T135-S1305RD, T135-S1305, T135-S1300WH, T135-S1300RD, T135-S1300, T135-SP2911C, T135-SP2911A, T135-SP2910R, T135-SP2910C, T135-SP2910A, T135-SP2909C, T135-SP2909A

Satellite Pro T130-W1302, T130-EZ1301

If you’re notebook is deemed defective you should contact Toshiba  at (800) 457-7777 or online at the Toshiba Consumer Notices website.

Via LaptopMag