14 PCWorld APRIL 2019NEWS HP RECALLS LAPTOP BATTERIES
G3) mobile workstations. The batteries were
also sold as accessories or replacement
batteries for the HP ZBook Studio G4 mobile
workstation, HP ProBook 4xx G5 series, HP
ENVY 15, HP Mobile Thin Clients (mt21,
mt22, and mt31), or for any of the products
listed above.
The batteries were shipped between
December, 2015 and April, 2018 as part of
the HP laptops listed above, as well as sold
separately between December, 2015 and
December, 2018.
Consumers can visit HP’s battery recall site
(go.pcworld.com/rcll) to find out whether
their laptop is affected. The batteries are notcustomer-replaceable, which means that
you’ll need to ship back your laptop to HP to
have it repaired.
If you do have an affected battery, don’t
remove it yourself, HP has warned. Instead,
HP has developed a BIOS update that will put
the battery into a “battery safety mode.” This
mode will discharge the battery and prevent
it from being recharged until the battery is
replaced. Put another way, HP said that your
notebook will simply refuse to operate
without the charger attached, so you’ll need
to plug in the laptop to use it.What this means for you: Battery recalls do
happen, because of errors in the
manufacturing process or other
defects. If you own an HP laptop,
head on over to HP’s website to
determine if your PC is affected.HP’s Mobile Thin Client
mt21 is one of the
affected models.