Dell Battery Recall Program

Dell is recalling certain lithium-ion, rechargeable batteries that were used with various models of its portable lines sold between April 2004 and July 2006. There is a possibility that these batteries can overheat, which could cause a fire risk.

Affected machines sold in the United States include:

• Dell Latitude D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, and D810
• Dell Precision M20, M60, M70, and M90 (portable versions of the Precision)
• Dell XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170, and XPS M1710 (portable versions of the XPS)
• Dell Inspiron 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505, and E1705

These include some, but not all, of the Dell Latitudes and Precisions sold in the 2004 and 2005 Back-To-School sales. These batteries were also sold as replacement batteries for the listed models. Approximately 19% (or 4.1 million) of the total production of these portables have the affected batteries.

Dell is prepared to dispatch a replacement battery upon the receipt of the replacement order. Customers will be asked to return their old batteries to Dell to ensure proper disposal. A postage-paid envelope will be provided to do so.

No other Latitude, Precision, XPS, or Inspiron batteries are part of this recall and the recall involves the specified batteries only, not the computers themselves.

Identifying your battery

The recalled batteries have these letters and numbers as the 4th through 8th characters in their serial number:

When you remove the battery from your portable computer, the serial number is located on the underside of the battery in a form resembling that shown to the right of this paragraph. If your serial numbers do not match the information listed in the table above, you do not need a replacement battery.

For more information and pointers to instructions on how to inspect your battery, and how to begin the battery exchange process, see Dell's Battery Return Program page.

--John Mulhern III, Senior Project Leader, ISC Technology Support Services (August 15, 2006)