Wednesday, October 04, 2006

The battery (non) issue

I had a few comments asking for a post on this issue of "batteries are exploding because of Intel CPUs" theory Sharikou has propogated. Here are my thoughts:

1. Do you seriously believe Sony has not closely investigated the issue to analyse root cause and would replace millions of $s of batteries thereby hammering what looked like a reasonable financial year after a long time if they could pass the blame to someone else? Do you think Sony is subservient to Dell, HP, Apple that they would take a 400+ (and counting) million $ hit. Sony is not dependant on these companies to survive unlike AMD, Intel and Microsoft. If they could save the money and more importantly their reputation for manufacturing excellence which affects their brand and hence other parts of their business, we would see a court case of humungous proportions.

2. If the issue were the thermals on Centrino and not a manufacturing glitch in the batteries, how would a battery re-call help? The risk of explosions persists by the same formula and the OEMs are waiting for the biggest consumer class action law suit ever to happen. I think not!

3. Sharikou believes he can pull off a cheap magic trick by simply saying because all batteries must be turned on to explode and all laptops have Intel CPUs consuming power...hence 1+1 = 3. Actually, the trick is if he says it often enough, with sufficient vehemence and calls you stupid then it will be true. Bottomline - there is a big fat ZERO impact to Intel from this.

4. Finally, this is a waste of time - mine and everyone else with two ounces of intelligence which is all you folks on this blog. Let's get past it and move on to topics that merit discussion. If I wanted to do a blog on things that lacked intelligence - we'd be discussing world politics.

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UPDATE

I think it's time to end this discussion once and for all. All 3 Apple notebook models affected by the re-call are G4's - not Macbook or Macbook Pro's. Hence, Sharikou's argument that the battery explosions are due to Intel CPUs is now officially dead & defunct. My advice to him - "Get over it quickly! Or your blog will lose credibility."

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sharikou is an idiot. And whats worse is that he keeps believing his crazy theories and supporting it with facts out of his A$$

180 Sharikou said...

Ashenman - till now I've seen reports of probably under 10 actual explosions. Every battery being re-called has not exploded and every Intel CPU with a Sony battery has not exploded. With over 90% share of the mobile segment it is statistically more likely that any Sony batteries exploding will have an Intel CPU. Do the math - if the actual explosions are in the single digits when you think about the millions of notebooks out there with a Sony battery and Intel is in over 90% of that installed base then what's the probability of actually seeing an explosion on an AMD laptop?

Anonymous said...

In other words, apply statistics to the problem. Seems to be just another area of science that the good doctor lacks any knowledge of.

180 Sharikou said...

Absolutely old boy...

Unknown said...

Sorry, I guess I should have applied it to all defective batteries, and just said overheating computers, since that's what leads to the batterie's deaths. You are right, that statistically, there's almost no chance they wont be Intel processors, since there are just so many. Again, I'm sorry for the poor wording. Though, I guess better parameters for the cause of the issue, and laptop problems related to it should be discussed.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the good doctor actually tried to explain to me that if AMD has 1/10 market share, 1/10 of incidences should be AMD. Since that does not appear to the case, it must be Intel's fault.

This simpleton's concept of statistics demonstrates once again that he doesn't know what he's talking about. He also couldn't address how a CPU could actually explode. Chalk up thermodynamics as another area of expertise he is lacking. I'm kind of curious what subject he did apply his superior intellect to in graduate school.

At least it is a source of amusement...

180 Sharikou said...

Azary Omega said...

With over 90% share of the mobile segment ....

Wheres the link to back you're numbers up? I think the AMD's market share in mobile is a bit bigger.

Don't be like Sharky now, back it up maHn.


Fair question dude. Here's a link that Intel's notebook market share worldwide end 2005 was around 88%...as admitted by AMD:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,125734-page,1/article.html

However, more importantly what I should have been clearer about was that I was referring to was share of installed base of Centrino's in notebooks over the last 3 years which would be north of 90% applying some common sense as AMD has been gaining share even in notebooks. Bottomline - "potayto" - "potaato". Pls don't get into a long discussion now on 88 vs 90. The point I was making was statistically it would be unlikely out of 10 exploding notebooks any of them would be AMD.

Anonymous said...

Even more companies are return their batteries to Sony now. So we have Apple, Dell, Toshiba, FSC and a couple of more. This is not turning out good for Sony. Another disturbing fact seems to be a memorandum wich Sonys board recived last year, saying that their batteries had issues, but wich they didnt pay any attention to..... ohh what i wouldnt pay to see shakira comment on this. Seems he hasnt shown up here for some time to comment on anything...

Anonymous said...

I really think sharikou puts the bs in his blog to get a reaction from people that want to correct his information and then he comes up with some more stupidity to back his claims. His antics are there just to generate traffic to his blog, he will almost never answer to a thought out reply to his blog and will only reply to the most ridiculous ones from amd fan bois that cheer him on. I only go to his blog to get a good laugh now.

Anonymous said...

when the components in a computer draws more power than the computer PSU, the PSU will not be able to handle that power and burnt, even *explode* for PSUs having bad circuit design.

The same does apply to laptops, the only difference is that the PSU is replaced with electrical cells of batteries.
If the design of the batteries wasn't so bad, then it will not be *exploding*, however, the batteries can still be burnt in all cases when the batteries cannot handle the power drawn to the computer components.

It is related to the power comsumption, not only the bad circuit design of the batteries.

S said...

How do you guys explain the Apple battery recall with statistics ? Certainly, there are far less Apple laptops in the market than AMD's

Anonymous said...

"How do you guys explain the Apple battery recall with statistics ? Certainly, there are far less Apple laptops in the market than AMD's"

Wow you have me convinced it was intel dual cores all along. Lucky for Intel Sony is such a generous company that it is willing to take a multi million dollar hit in recalls just to save intel's reputation. YOU SIR ARE A GENIUS!!! I vote this man to get his own blog so he can share his wisdom and analytical questions with the world.

180 Sharikou said...

S said...

How do you guys explain the Apple battery recall with statistics ? Certainly, there are far less Apple laptops in the market than AMD's


While that's probably a fair question, I guess the first thing to establish is whether AMD CPUs are actually paired with the faulty Sony batteries. Hold on...I just said faulty Sony batteries. Now are the batteries faulty or not? Because if they're not faulty then how come every Intel based laptop has not exploded? And if it's the batteries, that might explain the couple of Apple systems which are not Intel based that have exploded.

Ok...ok - I'm confused going round and round and round on this topic. So how about this...

The number of explosions reported are in the single digits. Compared to the millions of batteries being re-called, this is not a statistically valid number to begin with. Unfortunately, since the issue can result in bodily harm and hence a big law suit, the batteries are being re-called. You can count on the fact if the issue were not harmful like a minor software glitch there would be no re-call or even an apology. And we would all hear the argument that a few problems out of millions of laptops sold is statistically not significant.

Dudes - let it go. Try as anyone might, this is not getting pinned on anyone but Sony.

Anonymous said...

Intel is always to blam for their failures for the past 3 years and nobody else. If any Intel is inside something you just know theres going to be problems that will never fix themselfs or be fixed...

DR.PHD, you should beleave me because I have PHD beside my name... no matter what. *Teeth sparkles*

Anonymous said...

Ok there have been no explosions in a AMD LT as of yet. But many in Intels that are not related to sony batteries but many kinds. Its the board memory or cpu shorting out parts to make the battaries explode, because they are from intel.

Wonder why...

Anonymous said...

Looks like you have 3 people here that think other wise wize PHD 180 DUDE!

180 Sharikou said...

To the last 3 Anonymous posters - in order of appearance:

1. The dude who says he has a Ph D and we should believe him - I hope it is not in English because let alone believe, it will be difficult for people to understand you if you continue to display the same control of grammar and spelling.

2. Anonymous who claims many Intel explosions not battery related - you may be right but to have credibility you need to provide proof. Send us a link.

3. For the last guy - I don't have a Ph D. And if I find 3 people who think like I do does that make me right? -:)