HP issues a recall for laptop batteries that melted and charred

Some Hewlett Packard owners reported their laptop batteries have charred and melted, prompting the tech company to issue a voluntary recall for the affected devices.

In the Jan. 4 recall, HP cites eight reports of overheating, one in which caused a minor first-degree burn injury.

The recall applies to 50,000 laptops sold between December 2015 and December 2017, but in a statement the company notes the recall "pertains to 0.1 percent of the HP systems sold globally over the past two years." Though thousands of the lithium batteries might be defective, apparently the problem is not widespread enough for the hardware fixes to be mandatory.

For concerned HP owners, the specific affected models are:

• HP ProBooks (64x G2 and G3 series, 65x G2 and G3 series)

• HPx360 310 G2, HP Envy m6

• HP Pavilion x360,

• HP 11, HP ZBook (17 G3, 17 G4, and Studio G3) Mobile Workstations.

• The batteries were also sold as accessories or replacement batteries for the HP ZBook Studio G4

Not every battery in these laptops, however, is affected by the recall. To see if your battery is defective, HP recommends visiting its link https://batteryprogram687.ext.hp.com/ to run a 30-second validation test.