HONG KONG — Sony on Friday warned of the potential for batteries to burn or catch fire in some of its new Vaio laptop computers and asked owners of the units in question to stop using them immediately.

Sony said there have been three reports so far of problems with the internal batteries of its new Vaio Fit 11A, a laptop that converts into a tablet, where overheating resulted in partial burns to the housing of the unit.

It is not the first time that Sony has had issues with batteries overheating. In 2006, computer makers, including Dell and Apple, launched high-profile recalls of millions of laptops after it emerged that their batteries, which were made by Sony, were at risk of overheating and catching fire.

The current problem appears much smaller by comparison, and the batteries in question were not manufactured by Sony.