HP Laptop Battery Recalls Citing Burn Hazards: What the CPSC Notices Say

If You Are Wondering Which HP and Compaq Batteries Were Recalled

A recall is an official safety action in which a company, working with the CPSC, tells the public about a product hazard and offers a remedy such as a repair, replacement or refund. Here are the notices in order, oldest first, each as its CPSC page states it.

CPSC recall 16-202, dated June 23, 2016, is titled "HP Recalls Batteries for HP and Compaq Notebook Computers Due to Fire and Burn Hazards." It names the product as "Lithium-ion batteries" and lists about 41,000 units, with about 2,600 more sold in Canada and about 4,500 in Mexico.

CPSC recall 17-071, dated January 24, 2017, is titled "HP Expands Recall of Batteries for HP and Compaq Notebook Computers Due to Fire and Burn Hazards." It covers "Lithium-ion batteries used in HP notebook computers," about 101,000 units, noting that an additional 41,000 were recalled in June 2016.

CPSC recall 18-077, dated January 4, 2018, is titled "HP Recalls Batteries for Notebook Computers and Mobile Workstations Due to Fire and Burn Hazards." It covers about 50,000 units, with 2,600 more sold in Canada.

CPSC recall 19-079, dated March 12, 2019, is titled "HP Expands Recall of Batteries for Notebook Computers and Mobile Workstations Due to Fire and Burn Hazards." It covers "Lithium-ion batteries for HP commercial notebook computers and mobile workstations," about 78,500 units, in addition to the 50,000 recalled in January 2018. The page notes that the expansion was first announced by the firm on January 17, 2019, because of a government furlough.

For anyone trying to connect a notice to their own laptop, two details matter. Each notice names HP Inc., of Palo Alto, as the importer and China as the place of manufacture, so the company identified in the records is the same across all four. And each covers only the batteries it describes, not HP laptops as a whole, which means owning an HP laptop does not by itself place a battery inside a recall. The question a person in this position may weigh first is which of the four notices, if any, describes their battery.

How to Check Whether Your Battery Was Included

The identifying details differ from notice to notice, so the deciding record for any one battery is the CPSC page itself. For someone who was hurt, whether a battery falls inside a listed range can shape how the records relate to what happened.

The 2016 notice describes the batteries as sold with notebook computers from March 2013 through August 2015, and points consumers to an HP battery recall program page and phone line it lists.

The 2017 notice is an expansion, as its title says. It describes batteries "containing Panasonic cells" compatible with "HP, Compaq, HP ProBook, HP ENVY, Compaq Presario, and HP Pavilion notebook computers," shipped with notebooks sold between March 2013 and October 2016. It says the bar code is printed on the back of the battery, and that the expanded recall covers bar codes starting with 6BZLU, 6CGFK, 6CGFQ, 6CZMB, 6DEMA, 6DEMH, 6DGAL and 6EBVA. It also states that "Batteries previously identified as not affected by the June 2016 recall could be included in this expanded announcement."

If your laptop is a business or premium model, the 2018 notice may be the one to compare against. It lists batteries shipped with or sold as accessories for HP ProBooks (64x G2 and G3 series, 65x G2 and G3 series), HPx360 310 G2, HP Envy m6, HP Pavilion x360, HP 11, and HP ZBook (17 G3, 17 G4 and Studio G3) mobile workstations, plus accessory or replacement batteries for the HP ZBook Studio G4.

The 2019 expansion adds, among others it lists, the ProBook 4xx G4 and 4xx G5 series, the HP Pavilion x360 11-inch Notebook PC, the HP ENVY 15 and HP Mobile Thin Clients (mt21, mt22 and mt31). It says these batteries "were sold to businesses and other organizations." Both later notices describe a validation utility on HP's battery program website for checking a battery.

A model name alone may not settle whether a particular battery was covered, and a battery once cleared under the 2016 notice could still fall within the 2017 expansion. The site's lithium battery recall lookup guide walks through reading a CPSC notice field by field.

What the Notices Say About Overheating and Burns

The four pages use nearly identical wording. The 2016 notice states: "The lithium-ion laptop battery packs can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards." The 2017 notice states: "The lithium-ion batteries used in notebook computers can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards." The 2018 and 2019 notices each state: "The lithium-ion batteries can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards."

In plain terms, overheating in a lithium-ion battery can feed thermal runaway, a chain reaction inside a battery cell that generates heat faster than it can escape, which can cause the battery to overheat, swell or catch fire. The notices themselves describe the hazard as overheating; they do not explain the internal cause for any battery.

If you were burned or saw a battery char, it is natural to read these words as a description of your own event. A hazard statement is narrower than that. It tells the public what risk the recalled batteries can pose. It is not a finding that any specific battery injured anyone, not a finding that the recalling firm is liable, and it describes only the batteries each notice lists. A person in this position may weigh whether the battery involved matches a listed model or bar code, and whether the battery itself was kept, since those details are what link a hazard statement to a specific event. For how burns from battery fires happen generally, the site has a separate page on lithium battery burn injuries.

If You Are Asking What HP Offered Owners of Recalled Batteries

Each notice lists the remedy as "Replace," but the steps differ.

The 2016 notice states: "Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled batteries, remove them from the notebook computers and contact HP for a free replacement battery." The 2017 notice repeats that language and adds that until a replacement arrives, consumers should use the computer "by plugging it into AC power only," and it urges consumers "to recheck their batteries."

The 2018 and 2019 notices describe a different process. They direct consumers to HP's battery program website to see whether a battery is included and "for instructions on how to enable 'Battery Safety Mode.'" They state: "These batteries are not customer-replaceable. HP will provide free battery replacement services by an authorized technician."

What this means in practice depends on which notice applies: under the earlier notices the battery could be removed by its owner, while under the later ones replacement was handled by an authorized technician. These are the remedies as the notices described them on their dates. The pages do not say whether each remedy remains open today, so current availability is something the official CPSC pages and the contact details they list can confirm. Each CPSC page also carries a recall complaint form for people who believe a company "is being non-responsive to your remedy request." If you were injured, a replacement battery addresses the hazard going forward; it does not resolve questions about an injury that already happened, and keeping the original battery rather than discarding it can matter later.

What the Notices Reported About Incidents and Injuries

Every notice includes a short incidents line, which reports what the company had received by the date of the notice.

The 2016 notice states: "HP has received seven reports of battery packs overheating, melting or charring, including four reports of property damage of about $4,000 total."

The 2017 notice states: "HP has received one additional report of the battery overheating, melting and charring and causing about $1,000 in property damage."

The 2018 notice states: "HP has received eight reports of battery packs overheating, melting, or charring, including three reports of property damage totaling $4,500 with one report of a minor injury involving a first degree burn to the hand."

The 2019 notice states: "HP has received eight new reports of battery packs in the U.S. overheating, melting, or charring, including one report of minor injury and two reports of property damage totaling $1,100."

For someone who lived through an overheating event, these lines can feel like confirmation. They are reports, not findings. Federal law lists the information a notice issued under a CPSC order is to include, among other items "the number and a description of any injuries or deaths associated with the product" and the dates the Commission received that information, under 15 U.S.C. § 2064(i)(2). A count of reports does not establish what caused any single event, and it is not a finding of defect or liability. What it can show is that events of the kind described were reported to the company. A person whose own event is not reflected in these counts may weigh whether to report it through the CPSC page, and what records of the event, such as photos and medical notes, exist to describe it.

What These Notices Establish — and What They Do Not

This site keeps four distinctions in view: a recall is not a defect finding, an incident report is not proven causation, a lawsuit is not a liability finding, and an allegation is not a fact.

The CPSC works under the Consumer Product Safety Act. Congress stated that one of its purposes is "to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products," in 15 U.S.C. § 2051(b)(1). Under section 2064(b), a manufacturer, distributor or retailer that obtains information which reasonably supports the conclusion that a product contains a defect which could create a substantial product hazard, or creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death, generally must "immediately inform the Commission," unless it knows the Commission has been adequately informed.

The word "defect" carries a specific meaning for that reporting duty, and it is worth knowing because it is the same word that comes up when people ask whether their battery was "defective." Under 16 C.F.R. § 1115.4, "a defect is a fault, flaw, or irregularity that causes weakness, failure, or inadequacy in form or function," and it can come from a manufacturing error, from design and materials, or from a product's "contents, construction, finish, packaging, warnings, and/or instructions." That definition describes when a firm reports to the Commission; it does not mean a recall notice has found a defect in any particular battery.

What the notices establish, then, is that on each stated date a recall was announced for the listed batteries, with the stated hazard, units, remedy and reported incidents. They do not establish that any one laptop overheated because of the recalled condition, that a particular burn came from a recalled battery, or that anyone is legally responsible for a specific injury.

Whether a notice matters to one person's injury turns on the facts: which laptop and which battery, whether that battery fell within a listed model or bar code range, and what happened when it overheated. If you were hurt and are trying to see how these records fit what happened, a case evaluation with our attorney is a conversation that can cover those questions.

What Someone Hurt by a Laptop Battery Overheating May Want to Know

Product liability is a legal theory under which a person injured by a product may seek to hold a manufacturer, distributor or seller responsible by showing the product had a defect, in its design, its manufacturing or its warnings, and that the defect caused the injury. Damages must also be shown. Whether those elements are met depends on the specific facts, never on the existence of a recall alone.

If you were hurt, the records that often matter include medical records from the treatment of the burn or other injury, photos and video of the laptop, the battery and the place where it overheated, the device and battery themselves, the purchase receipt or order history, any fire department or incident report, and the names of anyone who saw what happened. The battery's model number and bar code matter too, because the notices identify covered batteries by those details. Families after a house fire often find that the papers kept from the first days are the ones that answer later questions.

Laws decide the rest, and they are not the same everywhere. A statute of limitations is the deadline for filing a legal claim, and limitation periods differ from state to state, as do fault rules and damages rules. No single deadline applies across the country, so the period for any one situation depends on the state whose law governs it. A conversation about a laptop battery injury can cover which state's rules may apply and the dates involved.

Recalls of other brands raise the same questions about what a notice proves, as the site's pages on Apple battery overheating records and the Galaxy Note 7 battery recall show.