HP Recalls Over 100,000 Laptop Batteries Due to Potential Fire and Burn Hazards
by Anton Shilov on January 26, 2017 7:00 AM EST
HP has expanded its voluntary recall of batteries due to fire and burn hazards. The batteries were used for various laptops sold under the HP and Compaq brands between March 2013 and October 2016. In total, the company has recalled over 140 thousand batteries in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
The potentially faulty batteries were used inside such laptop families as the HP ProBook, HP ENVY, Compaq, Compaq Presario, and HP Pavilion. HP issues the first recall of 41 thousand batteries in June 2016, but this week the company extended the recall to include additional 101 thousand batteries. According to HP, these batteries have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to customers. To eliminate any risks, HP will provide a free replacement battery in each verified, eligible case. Meanwhile, for customers with 10 or more potentially affected batteries, HP has initiated a process to assist with the validation and ordering.
The affected batteries have the 6BZLU, 6CGFK, 6CGFQ, 6CZMB, 6DEMA, 6DEMH, 6DGAL, and 6EBVA prefixes in their bar codes. However, since not all batteries (with matching barcodes) and laptops are affected by the potential problems, the manufacturer advises to either download HP’s Battery Program Validation Utility that determines whether the particular battery may be faulty, or manually enter serial number and barcode of the battery into a special form on HP’s website.
In the recent years, multiple makers of notebooks and smartphones have run into problems with batteries that overheated, exploded or caught fire. In many cases such batteries have damaged property and caused injury. As a result, HP is taking the issue with the batteries very seriously and it is important to check whether your laptop is affected (even if you do not live in North America, where the recall is taking place).
Source: HP (via HotHardware).
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dstarr3 - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
And this is why you build devices with user-replaceable batteries.Manch - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
Not just those serial numbers. We've replaced about 60% of our HP batteries.Manch - Friday, January 27, 2017 - link
Our bad battery Serials: 6DJFVandrewaggb - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
Yep, the whole lithium battery industry needs higher standards. These recalls have been happening for years.JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
>muh battery is too big 4 da laptop.>muh battery problems only exist when da battery is 2 big 4 elektroniks.
Waiting to see what other sheep come in from the Samsung Note7 battery issues to start proclaiming that the battery was _clearly_ too large, despite the scientific analysis presented in the article.
After all, batteries only explode when they're too big for their enclosure, and TVs only stop working when you watch too much TV without giving the TV some time to rest, etc.
Manch - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
What are you on about?JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link
Go check out the comments section of the Anandtech article "Samsung Reveals Root Cause of Galaxy Note7 Battery Fires", where dozens of commenters are going on about the battery size being too large being the issue causing battery fires, despite the article clearly explaining the issue being unique to two different Note 7 battery manufacturers.For the first, electrodes were too close to each other near the negative battery terminal, such that during normal thermal expansion and contraction during battery charging/depletion there was a chance that electrodes would bridge causing a short, leading to thermal runaway during the reaction, and a battery fire. The other manufacturer had shoddy welding for the positive terminal that occasionally, again caused a short, then thermal runaway, and thus a battery fire.
Essentially, I'm predicting another wave of idiots who can't read an article and don't understand that there is more to battery design and manufacturing problems than "hurr durr battery 2 big so fire happen".
Manch - Friday, January 27, 2017 - link
Well, that didn't pan out for you.sharath.naik - Friday, January 27, 2017 - link
My envy 17 from 2012, the battery bulged and tore the chassis right after the 4 year warranty, The support is the worst I have ever experienced. 90 mins of being bounced all over and finally saying they need 150$ to answer the simple question where can I find a replacement for the battery let alone find and answer to the battery bulging. Never a HP again.