Buy a Laptop Recently?

Did you purchase a Hewlett Packard laptop between March 2004 and May 2005? If so, check out this article about a battery pack recall:

HP Recalls 135,000 Laptop Battery Packs
By The Associated Press
Fri Oct 14, 6:59 AM ET

Hewlett Packard is recalling about 135,000 battery packs for some HP and Compaq laptop computers because of reports they overheated and melted, the Palo Alto, Calif., company announced Friday.

The lithium ion rechargeable battery packs are used with HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario, HP Compaq and Compaq Evo laptop computers.

The company has received 16 reports of the batteries’ overheating; four cases occurred in the United States.

The recalled packs bear a barcode label starting with GC, IA, L0 or L1.

The battery packs were sold internationally from March 2004 through May 2005 by national and regional electronics stores and on Internet sites such as http://www.hp.com and http://www.hpshopping.com

Consumers should stop using the products and contact the company for a free replacement. For more information, call Hewlett-Packard at 888-404-7398 or visit http://www.hp.com/support/ or http://www.cpsc.gov.