HP recalls 135,000 laptop batteries

Palo Alto (CA) - HP, in cooperation with the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, announced a recall of notebook batteries in the HP Pavilion, HP Compaq, Compaq Presario and Compaq Evo lines.

HP said that an internal short can cause the battery to overheat or melt and has already received 16 accident reports. The recall affects about 135,000 batteries world-wide with about 85,000 batteries in the United States.

The notebooks were sold online and in retail stores from March 2004 through May 2005. The recall also affects battery packs bought separately from the notebook. Mike Hockey, spokesperson for HP, told TG Daily that users should immediately stop using the notebook on battery power, but they can still work directly off the AC adapter. According to Hockey, the batteries are manufactured by a third party in Asia and represent a relatively small portion of the notebooks the company sold. "This is probably less than a week’s worth of output [of notebooks] at HP," Hockey said.

Notebook battery recalls are nothing new. Over the last several years, dozens of recalls have been initiated. A simple search of the CPSC reveals many recent recalls including ones by Dell, Compaq and NEC.

Users of the affected models should go to HP’s battery replacement website and request a free replacement battery. Hockey says, "You get the new battery in about 5 to 10 days and then you just have to send in the old battery." The site appeared to be flooded by requests Friday morning and early afternoon, as connections often were denied and answered with a "Server Too Busy" message.