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."

Comments

Rumor Mill

[smvp6459]

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."

Re:HP stands behind the products it makes?

[spisska]

On a related note, I've seen three Compaqs fail in the last two or three months, and none were older than a year and a half. On my notebook (Compaq Evo N800c), the HDD failed I suspect from overheating because of the video card. On one Presario desktop, the HDD failed without any notice from a corrupt boot sector, and on another Presario desktop, the CPU fan and heatsink assembly just broke (cheap plastic clamps).

I also found plenty of things inside the Presarios that just made me angry -- like the fact that there was an AGP circuit on the mobo but HP didn't put in a slot, and the fact that the case has a fan mount, but there's no 3-pin case fan connector on the mobo. That and the cheap CPU cooler assembly -- it's not an expensive part, but when it fails it can damage some very expensive parts.

Shoddy design, corner-cutting, and hardware that really should last longer. You'll have to count me in the "never HP, never again" camp.

Not always Interchangeable parts in Desktops

[Vandil X]

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.

As a sysadmin, I've opened up plenty of new & old Dell desktop computers and found proprietary power supplies, CPU sockets, and (obviously) the motherboard. It's not like you can stop by CompUSA or Fry's and pick up replacements. This is also shared among notebook computers and servers.

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.