HP Recalls 203,000 Laptops Over Battery Fires
HP has said that it must recall 70,000 batteries in the U.S. following incidents that saw two machines overheat and catch fire.
In coordination with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, HP yesterday announced a voluntary recall and replacement program for battery packs used in certain models of the company's laptops. The CPSC said it had received two reports of the batteries catching fire due to overheating and while no one was injured, the Commission has instructed owners of affected models to stop using them immediately.
Affected machines were sold between August 2007 through March 2008. For a list of affected models, see below. HP is instructing consumers who may be part of the recall to remove the battery from their notebook and contact to find out if theirs is affected. HP says it will provide a free replacement battery.
The problem affects 70,000 batteries in the US, however, according to a report in The Register, the worldwide count of affected batteries comes to a total 203,000. Citing an HP spokesperson, The Register reports that 82,000 are affecting in the Americas, 35,000 in Asia Pacific and 86,000 in Europe and Middle East and Africa.
Listed below are the models of laptops affected by the recall. However, the CPSC and HP note that not all models listed will contain faulty batteries. To check if you machine is one of the unlucky 70,000 check the bar code label on the bottom of your laptop. If it has one of the labels listed below, then you need to contact HP.
Check out the original announcement from the CPSC here.

Oh hey, Apple never has any problems!!!
Yea they could go along with the macbooks/ibooks whose batteries expand...
which then leads to not being able to close the laptop until the batteries 'cool down' and go back to original size..
If you buy the consumer line of products I would agree. However, their Business level machines through the channel are a different story.
Thank god I replaced it now..
First nvidia issues now this? what next?
Long live the desktop!
Sony...apple...dell...hp
Wtf are the engineers doing?
"Well gollie mr manager we just kinda expected that our laptops would sorta mystically not suffer the same problems as others despite having near identical conditions of operation and battery/battery environment."
Seriously...if you saw a bunch of dams fail...and you looked at yours and noticed it was built increadibly similarly...wouldn't you...just maybe... want to redesign it to avoid a similar fate?
Yup, some nice stuff - but some real crap stuff too. Why have laptop makers abandoned hardware sound controls? (Can't turn my sound down or off until it blares the windows logon music - drat!) Also, my TX2120US does not have a Security Key - so I have to open it and use the keyboard. *grumble*
Overall, I give HP a "slightly above average" design grade. However, I do like how you can get a complete parts manual from online. HPs are no "magic black box" if you want to hack it.
Sony did manufacture those batteries... the DV2xxx, DV6xxx and DV9xxx series HP's batteries were mainly manufactured by Sony. Recently for the new DV4-xxxx, DV5-xxxx, DV6-xxxx and DV7-xxxx did they switch to LG batteries.
There is nothing better then bubble gum and hookers. ha ha