HP expands fire risk laptop battery recall

Back in January 2018, HP issued a battery recall covering 50,000 laptop batteries which had the potential to overheat and become either a burn of fire hazard. A year on, and the recall has been expanded to include a further 28,500 batteries taking the total up to 78,500.

The faulty batteries were shipped in a wide range of products or sold as accessories for those products. As the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) website explains, the complete list includes "HP ProBooks (64x G2 and G3 series, 65x G2 and G3 series, 4xx G4 series), HPx360 (310 G2), HP Pavilion x360 11inch Notebook PC, HP 11 Notebook PC, HP ZBook (17 G3, and Studio G3) mobile workstations. The batteries were also sold as accessories or replacement batteries for the HP ZBook Studio G4 mobile workstation, HP ProBook 4xx G5 series, HP ENVY 15, HP Mobile Thin Clients (mt21, mt22, and mt31)."

As Tom's Hardware reports, HP actually updated the recall in January this year, but not many people heard about it. The CPSC forms part of the US government, which was stuck in a shutdown at the time and therefore sharing of this new information didn't happen on its website immediately. That changed on March 12.

The advice for these newly added batteries is the same as it was last year. Visit the website www.HP.com/go/batteryprogram2018 to check if your battery is included in the recall. If it is, then instructions are provided on how to place your battery in a "Battery Safety Mode." Replacing them will require HP provide an authorized technician to remove the old, faulty unit and install a new one as the customer can't do it themselves.