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Sony warns its VAIO laptops may overheat

Sony today issued a warning to customers worldwide that a system glitch affecting more than half a million of its VAIO laptop computers may cause overheating and possible burns.

The electronics giant said a heat-monitoring chip in some of its VAIO F and C series models that were launched in January this year could be defective, leading to possible overheating, a company statement said.

Although the defect has not been known to cause personal injuries, the firm said it received a total of 39 complaints from overseas customers saying that the shape of their computers became distorted from overheating.

The glitch affects a total of 535,000 laptops worldwide, of which nearly half is in the US and the remainder in Japan, Europe and China.

Sony said it is offering consumers a software application download with which to correct the malfunction.

Sony Ireland has said that only 340 units of the type of VAIO laptops affected by today's warning have been sold in Ireland. Not all of these laptops will be affected by the system glitch.

Sony Ireland is advising customers to log on to www.sony.ie to check if their particular unit is affected and if it is, then customers can download softward to fix the problem.