PSA : 15 million Toshiba laptop adapters recalled over burn and fire risks

Story : https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/21/tech/toshiba-laptop-adapters-recalled-fire-risks/index.html

Link to models and info : https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2024/Dynabook-Americas-Recalls-15-5-Million-Toshiba-Laptop-AC-Adapters-Due-to-Burn-and-Fire-Hazards

Weird regarding how old the adapters are.  Though guess not really as to how some hold on to their HP's and Dell's.

I also think it's weird that they're recalling such old stuff. I'd like to know exactly what is going wrong with them. I still have a Toshiba from 2011 as a Linux box. Sparking makes me think that it's just the cable fraying from being bent repeatedly, which could happen to any of them.

I do remember the AC power cords cracking (leaving exposed wire at 120V) on Toshiba laptops when I was in college (around 2012 or 2013), but there was no recall on those. Toshiba had become bottom-feeding scum by then, which was really sad. They went from some of the best laptops to some of the worst, and it was a sudden change.

Yes and I got stuck with one of the useless things .

I bought mine new in 2011, and it sucked in every way possible, including things that reviews don't always talk about. For example, the keyboard lasted three months. Their customer support was just as useless when it broke under warranty. They really should have recalled the whole laptop and apologized for selling such garbage (based on a generic laptop platform from Quanta - there were HP models that looked exactly the same, down to the port layout). I thought the AC adapter was the only part that wasn't completely useless (being made by Delta). I mentioned fraying because it has a big plug with a stiff strain relief, and the DC input jack on the laptop itself is in a really bad location. At one point, I was running it off an HP AC adapter from 2002 (same voltage and plug size, but 75W instead of 65W) just because it had a right-angle plug.

There were also things that weren't Toshiba's fault, like the CPU being painfully slow in every application except synthetic benchmarks. It got a higher Passmark score than older Core 2 Duo systems that were actually significantly faster in real software (night-and-day differences in stuff like compile times), and every time I said that back when this laptop was somewhat new, people made some really insane excuses to try to defend that CPU just because it was Intel Sandy Bridge.

Since I'm now an engineer, I'm more curious about what is actually wrong with it instead of the vague "overheating and sparking" statement that's in every electrical product recall.

Edited by lti, 24 February 2024 - 02:21 PM.

My guess is that Insurance companies have the resources to collect/sue Toshiba for damages instead of us mere mortals.  Plus, the devices are so old and at the garbage dump that Toshiba won't pay much for this recall.  Responsibility now shifts to the users.