Some 22,000 Acer Aspire Notebooks are being recalled because, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, they represent a burn hazard.
Mainly because they have the potential to melt.
Hot laptops are nothing new, of course, but generally speaking the seat of the fire risk is often to be found in the battery compartment. Not so with the Acer Aspire recall. Instead, according to the recall notice the "microphone cable may overheat when extreme pressure is applied repeatedly to the left palm rest" which can lead to the case becoming "deformed and the system may malfunction". In other words the microphone wire can short circuit and overheat.
Acer has apparently learned of three incidents of short circuiting which has resulted in the melting of the external notebook casings, none of which happened within the US and none of which caused injury. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is advising consumers that they should stop using these notebooks immediately unless otherwise instructed.
The affected units are Acer Aspire models AS3410, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3810TZ and AS3810TZG manufactured prior to September 15, 2009 and you can check to determine if yours needs to get sent back for repair/replacement by entering your unit details here.