The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission along with Dell Inc., the world's largest maker of personal computers, announced a recall of about 22 000 batteries for various Dell notebooks sold in the country from October, 2004, to October, 2005. According to various reports, the total number of affected laptops may reach 35 000.

A statement by Dell and CPSC claims that Dell had received three reports of batteries overheating. The incidents reportedly involved damage to a tabletop, a desktop, and minor damage to personal effects. No injuries had been reported, the company indicated.

The recalled batteries were sold with the such notebooks from Dell as Latitude D410, D505, D510, D600, D610, D800, D810; Inspiron 510M, 600M, 6000, 8600, 9200, 9300, XPS Gen 2 as well as Dell Precision M20 and M70 mobile workstations. The batteries were also sold separately, including as secondary batteries and in response to service calls. The affected batteries were sold from October 5, 2004 through October 13, 2005. The computers with these batteries sold for between $900 and $2650, and individual batteries sold for between $99 and $179.

?The batteries insert into the battery bay located on the underside of the notebook. ?Dell?and ?Made in Japan?or ?Made in China?are stamped on the batteries. The identification number for each battery appears on a white sticker. Customers should have this number available when they contact Dell to determine if their battery is part of the recall,?the statement by Dell explains.

Customers should contact Dell to determine if their notebook computer battery is part of this recall. If it is, consumers should immediately stop using the battery as a power source for their notebook computer. Dell will provide a free replacement battery.

• Press release and contact information: CPSC, Dell Announce Recall of Notebook Computer Batteries.