Toshiba Issues Recall For 15.5M Laptop Adapters Sold Between 2008 and 2014

Toshiba are a household brand that we’ve all known for decades, from televisions to laptops and everything in between. Therefore it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve had a Toshiba product, even if you didn’t realise. This is partly down to the fact that they not only manufacture under their own retail brand, but they also cater for quite a large OEM market as well.

With various products in various segments, laptops is one of the largest parts of their business, selling to both the consumer and b2b market, and having amassed sales that resonate in the millions, it’s no surprise that sometimes things can go a little bit wrong.

That’s what leads us on to the latest news in regards to laptop power adapters. If you’re still running an older Toshiba Laptop from April 2008 to April 2014 then the power adapter that you are using may be at risk of causing a fire and Toshiba/Dynabook has issued a recall of these decade old adapters.

Toshiba Power Adaptor Recall

As reported by TomsHardware, a recall has been issued in the United States and Canada which involves around 15.5 million Toshiba Laptop AC Adapters. These 15.5 million adapters involve models which were released between April 2008 and April 2014 so it incorporates laptops that are well over a decade old and between a 6 year window. Chances are many of these laptops and adapters are sitting unused, sitting in some E-Waste bin or still being used by someone’s Grandmother because as we know, the older a laptop gets, the slower it becomes, unlike desktop PCs that can be upgraded much more easily. Beyond a simple RAM and SSD upgrade, that’s about as far as you can take a laptop to put a new lease of life into it but as said, some users may still be using machines of this kind of age, purely for Facebook and Farmville, if that’s still a thing?

Now what is clear, is that if they’re recalling products that are this old, the risk must be severe enough to warrant it, and as stated on the recall notice, there have been 679 reports of adapters overheating or catching fire which includes 43 reports of minor burn injuries. The report does only include parts of North America, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Toshiba are already proactively looking into adapters that are sold within the UK or Europe to make sure no overlapping issues are present, because this could be even worse for the Japanese based brand, if it becomes world spread.

Now we’re not new to seeing issues like this arise, because in the world we live in, it happens and sometimes it can’t be avoided until it’s too late. The big thing, at least for me, is how said brand deals with issues and moves on whilst also limiting damage control and by the looks of it, Toshiba are making all of the right moves.

So if you’re still using one of these affected laptop adapters, which have been listed here, then you should visit support.dynabook.com and follow the instructions for the recall. I don’t imagine there are many if any of our readers who would be using the faulty adapter mainly due to the age, and knowing that our demographics typically consist of DIY PC users, but you never know, maybe you know someone who’s not quite as tech savvy who may be clinging on to an older device that uses one of these adapters.