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HP Recalls Another 100,000 Laptop Batteries After Reports of Overheating and Damage (techrepublic.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fault-in-our-batteries dept.

HP is continuing its recall of laptop batteries that could pose a risk to consumers. The company has recalled more than 100,000 lithium-ion batteries used in its notebook computers, according to Consumer Product Safety Commission. The recall expands one from HP in June, when an additional 41,000 batteries were recalled in the US. From a report on TechRepublic: The affected laptops were said to include a lithium-ion battery containing Panasonic cells that malfunctioned, leading to "overheating, melting and charring and causing about $1,000 in property damage," the US Consumer Product Safety (US CPSC) report said. The batteries in question could have been used in HP, Compaq, HP ProBook, HP ENVY, Compaq Presario, and HP Pavilion notebook computers. The recalled batteries were in laptops sold between March 2013 and October 2016, the CPSC report stated. Affected laptops could have been purchased at Best Buy, Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club, or another authorized dealer nationwide or online. The average cost of the laptops was between $300-$1700, and the standalone batteries were sold from $50-$90.

13 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Well there is one other possibility by Provocateur · · Score: 1

    That the victim could have been some tech blogger, not necessarily from an Engadget wannabe, just trying out this weird new electronics device that HP accidentally left behind in a restaurant after one of their brainstorming lunches.

    More like suicide blogger, seems to me.

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  2. Which Laptop Models? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Which Laptop Models?

    1. Re:Which Laptop Models? by suutar · · Score: 2

      perhaps more to the point, from the article: " The batteries included in this expanded recall have bar codes starting with: 6BZLU, 6CGFK, 6CGFQ, 6CZMB, 6DEMA, 6DEMH, 6DGAL and 6EBVA."

  3. Batteries turn out to be dangerous by dargaud · · Score: 2

    The more energy they pack, the more damage they are likely to cause when something goes south. Shouldn't there be some kind of national certification / testing program before they are allowed to be put on the market ? Discuss...

    --
    Non-Linux Penguins ?
    1. Re:Batteries turn out to be dangerous by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      Ha! Maybe it'll end up required for CE or something and it won't be worth multiple SKUs

    2. Re:Batteries turn out to be dangerous by dehachel12 · · Score: 1

      Sure. The president makes laws about that, not congress.

    3. Re:Batteries turn out to be dangerous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Oh no.
      They don't "fail" to see that it protects us, don't even try.

      Their bosses - or sometimes even still employees or coworkers (see Cheney) - see that all too well. That regulation is what keeps them from screwing us up the buttocks till we bleed. And. They. Don't. Like. It.

      Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.

    4. Re:Batteries turn out to be dangerous by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      regulation is a bad word for the R guys. they fail to see that it PROTECTS us

      The problem is regulations cost money. And increased costs mean less profit. Less profit is bad for all the CEOs and all that now in power in government.

    5. Re:Batteries turn out to be dangerous by Solandri · · Score: 2

      Wouldn't help because the batteries aren't the problem per se. It's the charging circuitry and charge history. Lithium-ion batteries become unstable if overcharged, or over-discharged and then recharged. Any Li-ion battery which is tested and certified as safe can still catch fire or explode if it's been charged/discharged in an unsafe manner.

      Way back when Li-ion smart phones and laptop batteries first appeared, manufacturers attempted to address this problem by putting the charging circuitry in the battery pack. The phone or laptop merely presented the battery pack with a certain amount of voltage and current. The battery's charging circuitry decided how to use that to charge the battery. And if it decided the battery was in an unsafe state or behaving strangely, it killed it. Unfortunately, the market got flooded with cheap knockoff "compatible" battery packs which either had poor charge protection circuitry, or didn't even have any protection. This is what led to the spate of battery fires in early cell phones and Li-ion laptops.

      A certification / testing program might have helped back then. But it didn't happen, so manufacturers were forced to move the charge control circuitry into the phone or laptop as a result. That way you could put in a cheap aftermarket battery, and still be reasonably protected (lithium-ion cells are fairly generic in terms of how their voltage responds to charge). Consequently, testing and certifying the battery packs won't do much good.

  4. HP = junk by Desler · · Score: 2

    Dude! You're getting an...... HP?!!!

  5. Attention tech manufacturers! by ctrlshift · · Score: 1

    Stop trying to make your gadgets so ridiculously thin! Shaving an extra 4 mm off their profiles is not worth failure on this scale! Put some decent cooling in your chassis. Bonus points if you use some of that extra space for a real RAM slot, drive bay, or other modularities you've been quietly removing for the last few years!

    1. Re:Attention tech manufacturers! by Desler · · Score: 1

      Laptop battery fires have been happening long since before people are making ultrathin laptops

  6. CSPC and HP Links by bosef1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here are links to the CPSC and HP websites for the recall

    CPSC
    https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2017/HP-Expands-Recall-of-Batteries-for-HP-and-Compaq-Notebook-Computers

    HP
    http://www.hp.com/go/batteryprogram2016