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HP Recalls 135,000 Laptop Batteries

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sat Oct 15, 2005 03:31 PM
from the also-replacing-laps dept.
HP Hardware
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."
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  • 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.
    • I'm sure many Slashdotter share the same experience as I have in high school. Whenever I made a mistake in math or science class, everyone just piles in and ridicule even though most of them can't come close to handling some of the problems. When you're at the top, everyone holds you to much higher standards than their own. Take it as a compliment.
        • We were talking about Apple actually and how if Apple had to recall their batteries all the Apple-haters would pile in and say how much Apple sucks. HP, as you mentioned, is at the bottom so this doesn't really happen.

    • Re:no one is going top care.... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Klivian (850755) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:59PM (#13799185)
      I'd guess you are right, no one is going to care about this except those sorry bastards having their laptop on their lap when the battery overheat and melts.
      • The only people that think Apple is renowned for extraordinary quality are those that close their eyes intentionally to the flaws in Apple products. There are plenty of us out here not fooled into thinking rounded-corner white plastic means anything more than decent corporate design.

        In reference to the GP, the people on this site pile on Apple because of the zealotry. Calm down about how this particular company is the second coming of whatever, and people will calm down about how it isn't.

        Round up the app

          • Re:no one is going top care.... (Score:2, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward
            This post has so many grammar/punctuation/spelling mistakes crammed into a single paragraph that I think it's going to collapse into some kind of moron-singularity.

            The errors in your first post are understandable since you were rushed to get the first post, but this is idiotic. If you can't be spared to time to proofread, then do not post. Please.

  • now and forever (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymouse Cownerd (754174) on Saturday October 15 2005, @03:35PM (#13798848) Homepage
    The battery packs were sold internationally from March 2004 through May 20005 by national and regional electronics stores and on Internet sites.

    So they foresee that all future batteries until 20005 will need to be recalled?

  • "HP fully stands behind the products it makes."

    Possibly with a big plate of chobham armor in-between?

  • HP Recalls 135,000 Laptop Batteries (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TarrySingh (916400) on Saturday October 15 2005, @03:56PM (#13798923) Homepage
    and the recently fired 15000 employees!

  • Are they sure? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gunpowda (825571) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:00PM (#13798935)
    Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely.

    Notice it's 'buy' rather than 'use'! No wonder they can state it so definitely.

  • HP stands fully behind its products (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:03PM (#13798943)
    At a safe distance of 50-100 feet.

  • Also from HP's FAQ (Score:5, Funny)

    by $RANDOMLUSER (804576) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:04PM (#13798947)
    Q: I don't speak Hindi, can I still call Tech Support?

    A: No.
    • Well... all I can say to that is...

      Kyun aap hindi bol sakte nahin hain?

      Eh? Answer me that... kyun? KYUN !?
      • HP outsources their tech support (at least for consumer-level products like laptops and desktops) so it's really random who / where you'll get. Usually it'll be Canada or India if you're calling from the States.

  • Rumor Mill (Score:3, Informative)

    by smvp6459 (896580) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:07PM (#13798957)
    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 [hp.com]

    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!

  • Not a Bad Thing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Comatose51 (687974) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:07PM (#13798965) Homepage
    "From their FAQ: Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. HP fully stands behind the products it makes."

    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 [wikipedia.org] 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).

  • it burns, it burns! (Score:4, Funny)

    by dhallilama (923143) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:09PM (#13798970)
    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 becau
    • If the bubbles and melting is so obvious this should be a no-brainer.

      1. Take a photo
      2. Put the photo up on a webserver
      3. Post the URL as comment to this story on slashdot
      4. Mention the URL of that slashdot-comment in a friendly E-Mail to HP customer service

  • Yawn (Score:4, Funny)

    by tktk (540564) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:16PM (#13798999)
    This has happened to companies so often now that it's only interesting news to the people affected. Let's think of a way to make it exciting.

    I suggest we start a betting pool and take bet on who's next and when.

  • HP stands behind the products it makes? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Biotech9 (704202) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:17PM (#13799004) Homepage
    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.
    • 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 th
      • On one Presario desktop, the HDD failed without any notice from a corrupt boot sector

        Really? What kind of notice would you like? "Your boot sector may or may not become damaged in the future but we don't know because we're not psychic."?

        Most of this is whining, every manufacturer does it. To not "cut corners" is to not stay profitable and lose sales. These may seem like 10 cent parts to you, and they are, but a simple 10 cent part over 10 million units just saved 1 million dollars. If you want protection bu
    • (to buy a powerbook or Toshiba on my recommendation)

      I definitely would not recommend a Toshiba, after having my experience with the Satellite 5105. I had three problems that were covered under the first year warranty (motherboard died, power supply died, then the video card died), then the next year the hard drive died. A few weeks ago, the video card died again, and not only is it not under warranty, I can't find a replacement card at a decent price.

      To top it off, Toshiba was sued over the Satellite 5

  • Melting battery is not too bad... (Score:4, Funny)

    by creimer (824291) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:18PM (#13799009) Homepage
    It's better than an exploding battery. Especially if you're on an airplane. :P
  • 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
  • "From their FAQ: Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. HP fully stands behind the products it makes."

    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 ju


      • Agreed. I never have a problem with voluntary recalls. I can't think of a laptop manufacturer that hasn't shipped defective equipment... some do it all the time (*cough*sony*cough).
  • 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 p

    • 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 p

  • HP and defects (Score:4, Insightful)

    by phorm (591458) on Saturday October 15 2005, @04:54PM (#13799158) Homepage Journal
    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 [zd7000forums.com] have been experiencing the same problems. Adobe has a warning [adobe.com] 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 [hp.com] 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.
  • 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
    • 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.
    • 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*
  • 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.
  • 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
    • 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
  • The CPSC [cpsc.gov] site lists the X1000 model as affected by the recall, but the HP [hpordercenter.com] 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.
  • 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!

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