Nvidia Recalls 88,000 Shield Gaming Tablets

Nvidia is recalling about 88,000 of its Shield gaming tablets after complaints about the device’s battery overheating.

Nvidia officials said in a notice July 31 that the company will replace the recalled devices, which are 8-inch Shield tablets that were sold between July 2014 and July 2015. According to a statement from company officials, there is the potential for the lithium ion batteries in the devices to overheat and create a fire hazard.

No other Nvidia products are impacted by the recall, company officials said.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Nvidia has received four reports of the Shield’s batteries overheating due to thermal runaway. Two of those reports included damage to flooring caused by the overheating batteries, the agency said in a notice. Thermal runaway occurs when there is an increase in temperature in the battery, which in turn causes further temperature increases.

Not all of the Android-based tablets are being recalled. The devices with a battery type model number of Y01 are impacted; those with model number B01 are not. To check the batteries, users can go into “Settings,” then “About Tablet,” followed by “Status” and then “Battery.”

Included in the recall are Shield devices with model numbers P1761, P1761W and P1761WX, and serial numbers from 0410215901781 through 0425214604018. The device’s model and serial numbers can be found on the left side edge of the tablet.

About 83,000 of the impacted devices were sold in the United States. Another 5,000 or so were sold in Canada. Nvidia officials are telling customers to stop using the tablet, except to back up data or to participate in the recall.

Nvidia, which is best known for selling GPUs that can be found in PCs and servers, is aiming the Shield tablets are hard-core gamers. They come with high-definition displays, a full controller and support for Android games, as well as a starting price of $299.

The tablets also come in two designs: a 16GB system that supports only WiFi, and a 32GB device that supports WiFi and LTE.