According to a US Consumer Product Safety Commission bulletin, Toshiba has recalled 41,000 laptops owing to concerns about overheating, with almost 100 reports being lodged about melting laptop cases that have resulted in minor injuries.

The bulletin said: “The notebook computers can overheat at the notebook's plug-in to the AC adapter, posing a burn hazard to consumers.”

The overheating problem, which affects Toshiba’s Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite ProT130 notebook computers sold between August 2009 and August 2010, largely results from the excessive cramming of processing power into a small space.

In an explanation, Toshiba said that potentially defective DC-In harnesses, which were used in the manufacturing of the mentioned laptops, caused overheating to the extent of melting the base of the laptops, close to the AC adapter plug-in.

Toshiba also cautioned that though there have been no reports, thus far, of any serious injury due to the defect, the temperature is high enough to pose a burn risk to the user.

Incidentally, with Toshiba’s recall of laptops coming after Sony’s July recall of its Vaio laptops and HP’s May recall of laptop batteries, it is evident that the companies apparently lack quality control during the engineering and manufacturing process; thereby indicating that the issues go beyond individual manufacturers and exemplify problems pertaining to the demands placed on laptops.