PSA: The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued an expanded recall notice for batteries sold and installed in some HP laptops and mobile workstations. HP announced the recall expansion back in January, but since the CPSC was affected by the government shutdown, it did not issue a notice at that time.

The recall was first announced back in January 2018 with about 50,000 units being recalled for "fire and burn hazards." Since then HP has received more reports of incidents involving its batteries and expanded the recall to include 28,500 more problem products sold.

"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," says the CPSC.

The faulty batteries were preinstalled in several models of notebooks and mobile workstations sold from December 2015 to April 2018. Some of the bad batches were also sold separately as replacements between December 2015 and December 2018.

This is not the first time HP has had trouble with its batteries, which are manufactured in China. In 2009-2010, the company recalled 124,000 units due to similar problems --- power cells overheating, rupturing, and catching fire. In 2017 it had another recall involving 101,000 laptop batteries. On a somewhat related note, in 2014 the manufacturer had to recall more than six million notebook charging cables.

The CPSC has a full list of the affected models in this current recall on its website. If you purchased an HP notebook or workstation between the dates listed above, check to see if yours is one of the models on the list. If so, HP has a webpage set up with more information on the recall process.