HP Recalls Laptop Batteries Over Fire Risk

Own an HP laptop? It may contain a defective battery that poses a fire hazard and needs to be replaced.

HP this week announced a worldwide voluntary safety recall and replacement program for about 52,600 laptop batteries, which "have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to customers." The recall affects batteries shipped with certain HP Probook, x360, Envy, Pavilion, and HP 11 notebook computers, plus certain HP ZBook mobile workstations sold worldwide from December 2015 through December 2017.

These products were sold via Best Buy, Amazon, HP's website, and other authorized dealers and sites. HP and its authorized service providers have also sold the faulty batteries as accessories and provided them as replacements.

"HP has received eight reports of battery packs overheating, melting, or charring, including three reports of property damage totaling $4,500 with one report of a minor injury involving a first degree burn to the hand," according to an alert from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.

If you believe your machine may be affected, head to HP's recall page and download the HP Battery Program Validation Utility to check.

"It is extremely important to check whether your battery is affected," HP wrote on its recall page, adding that validation "generally takes less than 30 seconds."

If the validation tool indicates your battery is affected, HP said you should "discontinue use of the battery immediately by placing it in Battery Safety Mode." When enabled, Battery Safety Mode will discharge the battery and disable charging until the battery is replaced. You can still safety use your laptop when it's in Battery Safety Mode by connecting it to an HP power adapter.

Many of the affected batteries are "internal to the system, which means they are not customer replaceable," HP said. If you're affected by this recall, you'll need to take your machine to an authorized technician who will swap out the battery at no cost.

:story: PC Magazine