Back in June last year HP carried out a recall of laptop batteries which could overheat and cause damage to property or person. In total, some 41,000 batteries were recalled, but it turns out that wasn't the end of the problem. An additional 101,000 batteries have now been recalled.
The affected batteries were shipped to the US, Canada, and Mexico in laptops released between March 2013 and October 2016. On the back of the battery is printed "HP Notebook Battery" along with the model number. The barcodes on the faulty batteries begin with any one of the following:
- 6BZLU
- 6CGFK
- 6CGFQ
- 6CZMB
- 6DEMA
- 6DEMH
- 6DGAL
- 6EBVA
If you own a HP ProBook, HP Envy, HP Pavilion, HP 200, 400, 600, 1000, and 2000 series, Compaq Presario, or Compaq CQ series laptop purchased during the time period stated above, it's worth checking the battery to see if it matches one of the codes above (see below for how to validate a battery). If it does, stop using the battery, remove it from the laptop, and prepare to return it to HP. In the meantime, it's safe to continue using your laptop on AC power.
HP sold these laptops for between $300 and $1,700 through Best Buy, Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club, and direct from HP.com. The batteries were manufactured in China and if they malfunction will overheat, melt, and cause serious damage to whatever surface they happen to be on. Those same batteries were also offered as accessory purchases and through support, so you could have more than one if you purchased an extra battery, or received a replacement through a support request.
HP knows of at least 2 incidents involving one of these batteries overheating and wants to avoid anymore damage from occurring.
HP released a validation utility which is available to download from its battery recall page. There's also a guide available there on how to validate manually and a very detailed breakdown of the affected model names.
Checking a battery should take no more than 30 seconds using the utility, or a couple of minutes manually.