Toshiba Joins Recall Parade, Blames Bad Memory

The recall potentially affects some 600,000 notebook computers. Toshiba will swap out the defective third-party memory modules free of charge.

"Under certain conditions, the subject component...in combination with certain other components might cause notebook PCs to experience blue screens, intermittent lockups, or undetected memory data corruption," said Toshiba in a statement. The company also noted that there is no risk of injury from the malfunctioning memory.

Although Toshiba claimed that the possibility of such symptoms was "extremely slight," it posted a free utility for download that once run, tells owners of Tecra, Satellite, Portege, or Dynabook notebooks whether their system contains one of the suspect memory modules.

In some cases, Toshiba said, swapping out memory modules is easy enough for the end user to do herself; in other instances, however, the laptop must be returned to an authorized dealer for repair.

Toshiba will cover all costs, including shipping of laptops and parts, in the recall that runs through April 30, 2005. Toshiba has posted information about the recall and a complete list of the systems which may contain the faulty memory, on its Web site.

Notebook makers have been plagued with recalls as of late. In June, for instance, Hewlett-Packard recalled defective memory modules used in some 900,000 Compaq and HP notebooks last year. (In fact, the bad memory used in the HP laptops was what led Toshiba to investigate its own portables.) And in early October, Dell said it was recalling almost a million power adapters it said could overheat, start fires, or shock users.