HP Issues Recall of 50,000 Laptop Batteries Due to Fire Risk

If you have an HP laptop, you’ll want to see if your model is mentioned in the following laptop battery recall notice issued by HP. Earlier today, the company announced that it is commencing a worldwide recall of lithium ion batteries for its notebooks and mobile workstations due to flaws that could cause them to overheat and catch fire.

Affected laptops include the HP Probook 65x, HP x360 310 G2, HP ENVY m6, HP Pavilion x360, HP 11 notebook computers, and HP ZBook mobile workstations.

The batteries were issued between December 2015 and December 2017 either with the laptops, or as accessories and replacement batteries for them.

HP cooperated with government regulatory agencies including the US Consumer Product Safety Commission in organizing the voluntary recall and replacement program for batteries. Many of the batteries, however, are internal to the notebooks and mobile workstations, meaning a technician’s services will be necessary to replace them. HP has offered to provide replacements and replacement services free of charge to impacted customers.

HP issued the following statement to Engadget regarding the safety recall, noting that only 0.1 percent of HP products sold in the past two years had been affected: “We recently learned that batteries provided by one of our suppliers for certain notebook computers and mobile workstations present a potential safety concern. We are taking immediate action to address this issue including a voluntary recall and replacement of the batteries. This action pertains to 0.1 percent of the HP systems sold globally over the past two years.”

In addition, the company has pushed a BIOS update that puts affected batteries in “Battery Safety Mode”, which allows the laptops to continue working without their batteries by connecting to an HP power adaptor. Impacted customers should put their laptops in “Battery Safety Mode” and turn in the batteries for replacement as soon as possible.