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."Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='hp,hardware';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; HP Recalls 135,000 Laptop Batteries Log in/Create an Account | Top | 111 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 111 comments 0: 104 comments 1: 78 comments 2: 48 comments 3: 20 comments 4: 10 comments 5: 4 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. no one is going top care.... (Score:3, Insightful) by hector_uk (882132) on Saturday October 15, @04:33PM (#13798834) 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. [ Reply to ThisThe question is... by bogaboga (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @04:46PMRe:no one is going top care.... by Comatose51 (Score:3) Saturday October 15, @05:01PMRe:no one is going top care.... by blackomegax (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @06:51PMRe:no one is going top care.... by Comatose51 (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @06:58PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:no one is going top care.... by ergo98 (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @05:03PMRe:no one is going top care.... by heinousjay (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @05:19PMRe:no one is going top care.... by ergo98 (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @06:46PMRe:no one is going top care.... by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @06:14PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:no one is going top care.... by drsquare (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @05:42PMRe:no one is going top care.... by RobertLTux (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @07:45PMRe:no one is going top care.... by pintomp3 (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @05:58PM Re:no one is going top care.... (Score:4, Funny) by Klivian (850755) on Saturday October 15, @05:59PM (#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. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:no one is going top care.... by LostBurner (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @07:39PMThere's a reason they hate Apple. by cleved (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @10:28PM4 replies beneath your current threshold. now and forever (Score:5, Funny) by Anonymouse Cownerd (754174) on Saturday October 15, @04:35PM (#13798848) (http://www.rayn.net/) 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? [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. HP stands behind their product (Score:4, Funny) by mousse-man (632412) <<mousse-man> <at> <gmx.net>> on Saturday October 15, @04:41PM (#13798873) (http://snoop.alphanet.ch/) "HP fully stands behind the products it makes."Possibly with a big plate of chobham armor in-between? [ Reply to ThisRe:HP stands behind their product by steve_l (Score:3) Saturday October 15, @04:56PMRe:HP stands behind their product by irc.goatse.cx troll (Score:3) Saturday October 15, @05:30PMRe:HP stands behind their product by cvas (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @07:36PMOf course... by efuseekay (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @06:17PMRe:HP stands behind their product by Propagandhi (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @06:18PMRe:HP stands behind their product by rfsayre (Score:3) Saturday October 15, @08:25PM HP Recalls 135,000 Laptop Batteries (Score:3, Interesting) by TarrySingh (916400) on Saturday October 15, @04:56PM (#13798923) (http://tarrysingh.blogspot.com/) and the recently fired 15000 employees! [ Reply to ThisRe: HP Recalls 135,000 Laptop Batteries by darkitecture (Score:3) Saturday October 15, @05:08PM Are they sure? (Score:5, Funny) by gunpowda (825571) on Saturday October 15, @05:00PM (#13798935) Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. Notice it's 'buy' rather than 'use'! No wonder they can state it so definitely. [ Reply to ThisRe:Are they sure? by XXIstCenturyBoy (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @05:40PMRe:Are they sure? by Anne_Nonymous (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @07:31PM HP stands fully behind its products (Score:4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 15, @05:03PM (#13798943) At a safe distance of 50-100 feet. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Also from HP's FAQ (Score:5, Funny) by $RANDOMLUSER (804576) on Saturday October 15, @05:04PM (#13798947) Q: I don't speak Hindi, can I still call Tech Support?A: No. [ Reply to ThisKyun? by vistic (Score:3) Saturday October 15, @05:44PMRe:Also from HP's FAQ by TheSpoom (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @07:24PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Rumor Mill (Score:2, Informative) by smvp6459 (896580) on Saturday October 15, @05:07PM (#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, HPwill replace batteries with serial numbers beginning with GC, IA, L0 or L1.These include many batteries shipped with the HP/Compaq R3000, zv5000 andnx9105 models (my nx9105 had an 8 cell battery with a serial number startingwith 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." [ Reply to This Safe to buy? (Score:2) by malraid (592373) on Saturday October 15, @05:07PM (#13798959) HP may be safe to buy, but not so safe to use! [ Reply to ThisHP has the problem fixed? by slashbob22 (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @05:16PM Not a Bad Thing (Score:2) by Comatose51 (687974) on Saturday October 15, @05:07PM (#13798965) "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). [ Reply to This it burns, it burns! (Score:3, Funny) by dhallilama (923143) on Saturday October 15, @05:09PM (#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...." [ Reply to This Youch.. (Score:2, Funny) by slideroll (901934) on Saturday October 15, @05:09PM (#13798973) (http://www.slideroll.com/) "HP fully stands behind the products it makes."That's because they've fused to their laps. [ Reply to This I have one of these (Score:2, Insightful) by beaverbrother (586749) on Saturday October 15, @05:10PM (#13798976) 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 because it is no longer usable or fixable. [ Reply to ThisRe:I have one of these by Kent Recal (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @06:00PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Once again, (Score:2) by Hawthorne01 (575586) on Saturday October 15, @05:14PM (#13798994) Apple leads the way for the Windows world to follow [lowendmac.com]. [ Reply to This Yawn (Score:4, Funny) by tktk (540564) on Saturday October 15, @05:16PM (#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. [ Reply to This HP stands behind the products it makes? (Score:5, Interesting) by Biotech9 (704202) on Saturday October 15, @05:17PM (#13799004) 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. [ Reply to ThisRe:HP stands behind the products it makes? by spisska (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @05:39PMRe:HP stands behind the products it makes? by iCEBaLM (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @10:42PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:HP stands behind the products it makes? by GerbilSoft (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @06:13PMRe:HP stands behind the products it makes? by GerbilSoft (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @09:03PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.HP owner of 2 laptops by linzeal (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @07:10PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Melting battery is not too bad... (Score:4, Funny) by creimer (824291) on Saturday October 15, @05:18PM (#13799009) (http://www.creimer.ws/ | Last Journal: Monday August 01, @12:45AM) It's better than an exploding battery. Especially if you're on an airplane. :P [ Reply to ThisRe:Melting battery is not too bad... by arth1 (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @05:33PMRe:Melting battery is not too bad... by EMH_Mark3 (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @07:33PMRe:Melting battery is not too bad... by creimer (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @07:49PM battery recalls becoming common (Score:2) by v1 (525388) on Saturday October 15, @05:26PM (#13799039) (http://vftp.net/) 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 ibooks have seen a very troublesome logic board recall for loss of video) [ Reply to This Compaq battery (Score:1) by salmonz (697297) on Saturday October 15, @05:27PM (#13799050) Back in August 2005 I bought a new Compaq Presario C2310CA laptop. It worked fine for a couple of days and then - battery broken. Good thing I bought a two year extended warranty from Staples because I can now get my laptop replaced on the spot instead of going through HP.They should recall the HP battery starting with serial # L. [ Reply to This Hey that's me! (Score:1) by Zagar (610861) on Saturday October 15, @05:31PM (#13799063) Too bad the laptop is brand new, I could've made a good deal if it were a few years old (free new battery). [ Reply to ThisRe:Hey that's me! by sb_huey (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @11:06PM context (Score:2) by Andy Gardner (850877) on Saturday October 15, @05:33PM (#13799071) "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 just wait for the batteries to melt and let the users report the fault directly, and then issue a replacement. Without making a big press release.Having said that, I wouldn't buy one :) [ Reply to ThisRe:context by Barumpus (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @06:34PMRe:context by nametaken (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @06:50PM Good! (Score:1) by j235 (734628) on Saturday October 15, @05:46PM (#13799132) I for one am glad about this. Bought an r3000 last year and the battery has gone from about 3 hours at full blast brightness to about 1.5, probably due to the terrible plug design (it always falls out... always)Can't wait to get a new one. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. People want laptops, but don't know why (Score:2, Offtopic) by Glowing Fish (155236) on Saturday October 15, @05:47PM (#13799134) (http://glowingfish.dyndns.info/~mnharris) 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 people ask me about laptops, I ask them: "So, if you have a laptop, and its powersupply, battery, screen (or other such part) breaks, what are you going to do?". They usually answer that they don't know, and I say I don't know either, but it is perhaps something to think about before you spend 1,000 dollars on a sexy accesory.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.Go, Fellow Geeks, and warn your less weary brethern of the true costs of buying a laptop. [ Reply to ThisRe:People want laptops, but don't know why by wrf3 (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @06:32PMRe:People want laptops, but don't know why by Glowing Fish (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @06:49PMRe:People want laptops, but don't know why by wrf3 (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @08:21PMNot always Interchangeable parts in Desktops by Vandil X (Score:3) Saturday October 15, @06:51PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. HP and defects (Score:4, Insightful) by phorm (591458) on Saturday October 15, @05:54PM (#13799158) (http://www.phormix.com/ | Last Journal: Monday May 19, @01:08PM) 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. [ Reply to This Machine gun creater sites same claim (Score:1) by djsmiley (752149) <djsmiley2k@gmail.com> on Saturday October 15, @05:58PM (#13799179) (http://djsmiley.blogdns.com/ | Last Journal: Friday February 13, @11:48AM) "Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. HP fully stands behind the products it makes."Thats what the guy who created machine guns said. Lucky bastard wasn't the one standing in front of one when it went off...... [ Reply to This HP notebook battery question - indicator on side? (Score:2) by frovingslosh (582462) on Saturday October 15, @06:12PM (#13799237) 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 when the battery is removed. I was hoping that the finger icon was some sort of pressure sensitive switch, but that does not seem to be the case. Does anyone know how this thing on the HP lithium ion battery is used? [ Reply to ThisRe:HP notebook battery question - indicator on sid by Arghdee (Score:1) Saturday October 15, @07:22PMRe:HP notebook battery question - indicator on sid by ParisTG (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @07:24PMRe:HP notebook battery question - indicator on sid by Khyber (Score:2) Saturday October 15, @08:20PM Feel free to roast the top nuts.. (Score:2) by TheHawke (237817) <rchapin@pelicanc ... .net minus punct> on Saturday October 15, @07:04PM (#13799431) (http://www.pelicancoast.net/~nighthawke) HP Corporate Office.1501 Page Mill RoadPalo Alto, California 943041-650-857-1501Work 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. [ Reply to This WHOA! (Score:1) by dexomn (147950) on Saturday October 15, @07:20PM (#13799494) >>From their FAQ: Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. HP fully stands behind the products it makes."HP started making Mitac and Compal laptops?!?!? Wow! HP is bigger than I thought! I guess they must be if their printer ink is the most valuable fluid on earth. =/ [ Reply to This More models affected? (Score:2) by RyoShin (610051) on Saturday October 15, @07:29PM (#13799539) 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 laptop itself to cool off. This was rare back then, and after a few times I labeled one of the batteries (they were the same type/model) so I could determine which one was having the problem. I finally figured out that only one of them was doing it.Late 2004 (when it was becoming more frequent) I figured out that the battery started to overheat as the charge approached 100% (the speed at which it did seemed to vary with how much charge was still at the battery when it started charging.) Removing the battery once it started to heat and putting it back in after it cooled allowed it to finish charging (and once it was done charging, it could be left alone with no heating problems.) However, by this point, the battery life was cut from 3.5 hours to about 2.Another odd reaction was that once the battery got to a certain point, the laptop stopped recognizing it altogether (flashing orange light, indicating no battery in the slot, no charge icon in Windows.)I finally broke down in March of this year and e-mailed HP. Their reply was something with the BIOS, and included a few other steps for testing. I haven't done them yet, as I can monitor the battery and keep it from overheating, and it still works (albeight with a shorted life span.) It hasn't melted anything (yet), though there have been some temporary burns.It seems to me that this overheating problem may be affecting a larger base of people than the article claims. I don't have a bar code on either battery, and the model is f4809a. If you have a Presario (my model is the 2190), I encourage you to watch it while it's charging, especially if you carry it around with you a lot. [ Reply to This X1000 Affected or not? (Score:2, Interesting) by Tim U. (916375) <tim@tetro.net> on Saturday October 15, @08:17PM (#13799772) (http://tetro.net/) 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. [ Reply to This Are the crazy mac zealots.... (Score:2) by callipygian-showsyst (631222) on Saturday October 15, @09:37PM (#13800168) (http://www.robert.to/) 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! [ Reply to This Re:Chinese made garbage (Score:1, Offtopic)