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HP Recalls 135,000 Laptop Batteries
caffeine_monkey writes "AP is reporting that Hewlett Packard is recalling 135,000 notebook batteries because they occasionally overheat and melt. Affected models are HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario, HP Compaq and Compaq Evo. More details are on the HP support site. From their FAQ: Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. HP fully stands behind the products it makes."
see how no one is going to care about this, but when it happens to apple it's on ever news site and used as flame ammo by every apple hater, just the same as the ipod flaws that are shared by almost every player.
So they foresee that all future batteries until 20005 will need to be recalled?
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
Dell had a battery recall 2 years ago.
Dell also did a recall with the power supplies.
I still can't get my pack replaced; HP's site keeps saying my pack isn't part of the return process (I meet all the criteria!). I'm still going to try via the phone center because A) I don't want to burn my... lap, and B) I really want a new pack =\.
Detroit is in the 3rd world? I think you may have a point there...
Oh well, what the hell...
"HP fully stands behind the products it makes."
Possibly with a big plate of chobham armor in-between?
Guys, I think it's time to avoid non home made products. May be companies like HP will learn a thing or two. I am I asking for too much?
Didn't you see Roger and Me? American cars are all made in Mexico :p
and the recently fired 15000 employees!
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
Double insult - I stay in Detroit and help manufacture cars, dear insensitive clod.
Notice it's 'buy' rather than 'use'! No wonder they can state it so definitely.
At a safe distance of 50-100 feet.
Q: I don't speak Hindi, can I still call Tech Support?
A: No.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
According to someone on a compaq/linux list to which I subscribe:
"Since there have been at least 16 incidences of batteries catching fire, HP
will replace batteries with serial numbers beginning with GC, IA, L0 or L1.
These include many batteries shipped with the HP/Compaq R3000, zv5000 and
nx9105 models (my nx9105 had an 8 cell battery with a serial number starting
with GC).
http://www.hp.com/support/BatteryReplacement
This again confirms that the batteries truly suck, at least the 8 cell ones.
At least I'll get a new one."
HP may be safe to buy, but not so safe to use!
please excuse my apathy
The more cynical ones are going to dismiss this as just marketing BS but I'm glad HP is at willing to admit their mistake and rectify it. At least they're not trying to pull a Ford Pinto here. Even in the computer industry there are companies who would pretend there is no problem and hope it goes away. My laptop had a defective hard drive and when I called support they blamed it on the fact that I leave my computer on all the time (it wasn't IBM but a much smaller brand).
EvilCON - Made Famous by
notebook... usually in the lap... not a good place for it to be if the batts overheat and melt.... "honey, know all that money we were wasting on birth control? wont need it anymore...."
"HP fully stands behind the products it makes." That's because they've fused to their laps.
So both my mom and sister have a Compaq Presario 2100, one of the affected models, but according to HP's site they don't have the issue thats being recalled. One of the computers recently died due to melting near the power supply. The other is like 150 degrees all the time, and has a battery pack that has bubbles of plastic from the melting and has had a number of labels melted off. So in what way do my computers not have overheating problems? I just spend $1500 on my sister's computer to replace it because it is no longer usable or fixable.
Apple leads the way for the Windows world to follow.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
I suggest we start a betting pool and take bet on who's next and when.
"The word unblowuppable is thrown around a lot these days, but I think I can say for certain that...
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
don't make me laugh.
I am always fixing peoples PCs, I don't mind, most of the time it's drivers or spyware. I had a good friend come over two weeks ago with a Compaq presario 1000 (compaq now owned by HP and HP responsible for their products).
The (slightly over 1 year old) laptop would not turn on. No response at all, when you hit the power, it made the tiniest of 'whirrs' and did nothing. So I guessed it was a broken Video card or bad ram. It was something I wasn't going to touch anyway. I decided just on a whim (while we waited for the kettle to boil) to google. Turns out this is a very common problem with this X1000 model. Compaq used over-clocked 9000 ATI cards driven as 9200s. They overheated and over time worked themselves out of the motherboard. A quick initial fix was to press the 67Y keys very hard. I did it, and the laptop booted.
Problem is, this is not a repair, apparently the problem will repeat until that fix doesn't work. This occurred in Sweden, and in Sweden the law is if the problem is manufacturers, you have a 3 year guarantee. So my friend gets her cash back (to buy a powerbook or Toshiba on my recommendation). All the poor bastards in the US (who have a forum to complain about this issue) are out of luck, HP have ignored them. They sold mislabelled and unfit-for-purpose hardware and shafted their customers. Most of the comments I read about this (frankly terribly designed and ugly) laptop were all saying "never HP,never again".
Hp are not the company they were 10 years ago.
It's better than an exploding battery. Especially if you're on an airplane. :P
Brown goo that is.
Apple has what, a half dozen active recalls on batteries? I know of two for the 15" albooks and one for the 12" albook that were recently put into effect. You don't see much in the way of other failure recalls though - it seems that if it doesn't light the computer on fire it's not going to get recalled. (comp makers don't seem to care about it just plain not working, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone and bait a lawsuit?) Maybe that's why we see battery recalls and not much of anything else. (though the ibooks have seen a very troublesome logic board recall for loss of video)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Back in August 2005 I bought a new Compaq Presario C2310CA laptop. It worked fine for a couple of days and then - battery broken. Good thing I bought a two year extended warranty from Staples because I can now get my laptop replaced on the spot instead of going through HP.
They should recall the HP battery starting with serial # L.
Too bad the laptop is brand new, I could've made a good deal if it were a few years old (free new battery).
YAFIRL (Yet another Free iPods referral link)
It seems slightly harsh to quote from an FAQ that was in all likely-hood published before HP realised there was a problem with it's batteries. Unless of course the poster is implying that HP knew there was a problem and they intended to recall them all along...
I say fair play at least they've 'owned up' so to speak and gone ahead with the recall. I would wager there's a lot of companies that would just wait for the batteries to melt and let the users report the fault directly, and then issue a replacement. Without making a big press release.
Having said that, I wouldn't buy one :)
I have been trying to file my claim for a few days but different news sites keep linking this and hosing hp's server. From the looks of it I wont be able to file on the weekend either you insensitive clod.
So, saying China is 3rd world and that they produce rubbish is not an insensitive,
over-generalised statement?
I just bought a Pavilion zd8110 two months ago and the only problem I've had with it is one day the screen just turned off and the laptop froze. It would not reboot. But, HP was more than helpful trying to troubleshoot and thanks to my warranty, send it to them to fix or replace. Even though they need to get people that speak english to do support, the people were very polite and wanted to help. I can't complain really. Even with that, I am still very happy with HP. Give them a break.
Well... all I can say to that is...
Kyun aap hindi bol sakte nahin hain?
Eh? Answer me that... kyun? KYUN !?
I for one am glad about this. Bought an r3000 last year and the battery has gone from about 3 hours at full blast brightness to about 1.5, probably due to the terrible plug design (it always falls out... always)
Can't wait to get a new one.
Its time for a rant!
Laptops have always been popular, but over the past year or so, they have become very popular, especially among people who are more consumer technology oriented than computer oriented.
I know that lots of people use and need their laptops. Some people have jobs as field engineers, etc. If I was one of these people, and I knew all of what I was getting into, I would have a laptop. But lots of people think they "NEED" a laptop so that they can check their e-Mail in the coffee shop.
So when people ask me about laptops, I ask them: "So, if you have a laptop, and its powersupply, battery, screen (or other such part) breaks, what are you going to do?". They usually answer that they don't know, and I say I don't know either, but it is perhaps something to think about before you spend 1,000 dollars on a sexy accesory.
Many parts of laptops, especially the battery and power supply, seem to be prone to failure, and unlike a normal computer, these parts are not interchangable (part of the reason for this is that many people don't realize that computers parts are interchangable, but think that their computer has a special "Dell" Hard Drive), so if you have a three year old computer with a dead or broken battery, you are going to spend a lot of time on e-Bay and a lot of money to replace it.
Go, Fellow Geeks, and warn your less weary brethern of the true costs of buying a laptop.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
It seems that the defect has to be potentially life-threatening for HP to react. I have an HP ZD7000 laptop. There is a known fault in something to do with the RAM controller wherein - if you have the secondary RAM slot filled - the laptop will reboot or shutdown spontaneously in instances of applications that have heavy memory usage (I'm assuming those that have requirements of memory from both slots). Generally the problems have been noticed in photoshop, but I've had them occur in GIMP or some games. Others have been experiencing the same problems. Adobe has a warning on this.
So I've contacted HP technical support about this. I've talked on the phone, and then by email. The representative from HP assured me that no such issue existed, and we back-and-forthed for awhile. Eventually, I found this article on HP's own website. When I emailed it to the HP rep, he prompted stopped answering my emails.
Maybe if my battery had exploded I would have gotten better support from HP, but it seems it has to be a big issue for them to do anything about it.
"HP fully stands behind the products it makes?" Maybe, but only when it looks like it might lose them money due to lawsuits or poses a health risk.
"Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. HP fully stands behind the products it makes."
Thats what the guy who created machine guns said. Lucky bastard wasn't the one standing in front of one when it went off......
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
I have recently had problems with my HP notebook battery and that caused me to take a close look at it. Unfortunately, it's not one of the batteries listed in the article, so I guess no replacement for me. But I noticed on the side of the battery what seems to be some sort of indicator system. It looks like a finger icon and 5 small spots, perhaps LEDs, on the side of the battery. But the way the battery is mounted these spots cannot be seen when the battery is in place, and they don't light or do anything when the battery is removed. I was hoping that the finger icon was some sort of pressure sensitive switch, but that does not seem to be the case. Does anyone know how this thing on the HP lithium ion battery is used?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
But Compaq doesn't!
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Things like RAM modules and hard disks are certainly standardized parts and replaceable on all three types of computers.
The key to owning any computer, portable or not, is that if you aren't personally equipped to service the machine yourself, purchase the extended warranty plan. Dell offers 3 year warranties for an extra cost. Apple does the same with AppleCare.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
HP Corporate Office.
1501 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, California 94304
1-650-857-1501
Work the channels and the chain of command so that they will have a paper trail to go back on so that they can at least attempt to remedy the situation.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
I have gone through 2 laptops since when I started school 2 years ago. Both HP, one a replacement for the original which died due to electronical noise from the 60 year old wiring in this 110 year old Victorian house but the second one has been sent back 2 times as well. Frankly I think I'm just going to buy either the cheapest slave made laptop or splurge a wad on a toughbook. My geologist friend swears by his, he has taken the thing to the far reaches of the Earth without a problem.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
>>From their FAQ: Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. HP fully stands behind the products it makes."
HP started making Mitac and Compal laptops?!?!? Wow! HP is bigger than I thought! I guess they must be if their printer ink is the most valuable fluid on earth. =/
It's a power meter for the battery. Push the button and the LEDs light showing the level of charge in the battery.
Mine works fine.
Pity the rest of the Compaq laptop is average - serves me right for buying a laptop with a desktop CPU in it.
Performance is great, the heat and battery life are not.
The LCD panel however seems to be quite decent - certainly haven't had an issue with image quality.
Presario 2594AG here..
The finger icon is a button. When you press it, the LEDs will show you an approximate state of charge for the batteries. Its meant to be used when you have more than one battery, and want to check the state of charge without having to plug it into your computer.
:).
Pressing the finger button should enable the LEDs. If it does not, maybe you aren't hitting it hard enough, or in the right spot, or maybe it got damaged in some way. All I can say is that mine works
Hope this helped.
I wonder if this is a more wide-spread problem. I bought the cheapest Compaq Presario that was on the market back in May of 2003 (which, in hindsight, was a horrible horrible idea, and I'm still using it as my main computer now.) Part of the deal when I bought it was that I got a free second battery (which, at the time, cost $120.)
Mid 2004 I started noticing that every once in a while my battery, while charging, would overheat. I would have to remove it from the battery compartment to allow both it and the laptop itself to cool off. This was rare back then, and after a few times I labeled one of the batteries (they were the same type/model) so I could determine which one was having the problem. I finally figured out that only one of them was doing it.
Late 2004 (when it was becoming more frequent) I figured out that the battery started to overheat as the charge approached 100% (the speed at which it did seemed to vary with how much charge was still at the battery when it started charging.) Removing the battery once it started to heat and putting it back in after it cooled allowed it to finish charging (and once it was done charging, it could be left alone with no heating problems.) However, by this point, the battery life was cut from 3.5 hours to about 2.
Another odd reaction was that once the battery got to a certain point, the laptop stopped recognizing it altogether (flashing orange light, indicating no battery in the slot, no charge icon in Windows.)
I finally broke down in March of this year and e-mailed HP. Their reply was something with the BIOS, and included a few other steps for testing. I haven't done them yet, as I can monitor the battery and keep it from overheating, and it still works (albeight with a shorted life span.) It hasn't melted anything (yet), though there have been some temporary burns.
It seems to me that this overheating problem may be affecting a larger base of people than the article claims. I don't have a bar code on either battery, and the model is f4809a. If you have a Presario (my model is the 2190), I encourage you to watch it while it's charging, especially if you carry it around with you a lot.
The CPSC site lists the X1000 model as affected by the recall, but the HP site does not.
Are they trying to screw X1000 owners out of replacement batteries, or did they discover the X1000 battery packs are not effected?
I guess I'll have to wait till Monday to call and find out.
The 5 LED on the side is the power meter on the battery. the button you press should tell you the charge on it. If they don't light up, the meter's busted. *holds his battery in his hand and presses the button, still 80% after 4 months of no usage in any other computer*
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
anyone know anything about this?
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
I think I might have been one of the people who spurred the recall. Back in Dec 2004, my HP Pavilion actually started smoking.
(by the way, the Captcha for my making this comment is "puberty." Isn't that odd?
Are the crazy mac zealots going to get upset over this? It seems like this is just another case of those darn Wintel companies *copying* a Macintosh feature--the exploding battery!
Best Buy can have you arrested
For those of you who recall (pun fully intended), the difference between HP and Apple is that HP owns up to its mistakes and issues a recall where, instead of a mere switch-around of defective products, they actually mail you a new one. Apple's policy, as I implied, is not so forthright.
Detroit does not make garbage...if you wipe detroit and its industries completely off the map, those things you drive...uhhh those things they called vehicles? Gone. Detriot doesn't get enough credit for what it does, sure kilpatrick is a horrible mayor, but people just need to learn to get on with their lives (and learn to privatize the city buisness deals to get us outta debt)
I bought my ze4200 back in April 2003. Best computer I've ever owned, incidentally (full Linux support on everything), except for the lack of USB 2. Oh well, at least it has firewire.
Anyway, just pulled my battery out to check on this recall, and yeah, not covered. However, I've never experienced any issues with overheating at all. I use it almost 99% of the time plugged in, as I'm not often far from a power outlet, so it doesn't often have a chance to lose charge. It still holds a 2+ hour charge, which is what it did originally (basically a full-length movie). It may be a bit less now but 10-20% tops.
Mind sharing what HP told you re: the BIOS etc? I was a bit disappointed that my battery wasn't covered by this recall (hey, FREE NEW BATTERY!), but still... maybe mine is set up differently.. HP vs Compaq etc. The bar code on mine is 2003/02/05a62202, btw.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I work at a college that uses about 2500 compaq/hp laptops and we have has one or two of these batteries overheat and "melt down" on us. In one of them it had caused the system board to break also. There are not many laptops with these batteries but we are replaceing them too.
I have a Compaq Presario 2108CL laptop but they said my L1xxxxx battery wasn't part of the recall. I'm going to have to check with their support just to make resure. It would be nice to get a new battery.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
Do not use!!!!!!!!!
I was the "victim" of a similar recall for the battery of my wife's Fujitsu Siemens notebook earlier this year. These battery recalls happen an awful lot of time lately and I would like to ask: who is the battery manufacturer? I know IBM, Fujitsu Siemens, Acer, etc. don't produce their models themselves but make the design and outsource the production.
I just want to point out that the several parts of a notebook are produced by different vendors, like the video card in my ThinkPad is from ATI, the DVD/CD-RW from Matsushita, and so on. So maybe we shouldn't blame HP here alone, but also the producer of the battery. In any case HP (and in my case Fujitsu Siemens) is responsible for bad QA here.
Mein soch rahaa hun, ki mein achaa kiyaa. Mein american hun, aur sirf hindi sikhaa kyonki mera desi ex-bf tha.
Yadi Hindi appki martubhasha nahin hain, to aap Hindi aachhe bol lete hain. Parantu aap vichar Angrezi mein karte hain, aur usi tarah likhte hain. Hindi aur Angrezi ki vyakya-rachna thodi alag hain. Hindi aur French ki vyakya rachna ek saman hain.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
incredible coincidence? my hp pavilion battery has gone bad today
I call sloppy moderation. That's an "offtopic", not a "troll"!