HP has been dealing with a big issue lately. Basically, if you have any HP laptop that’s a couple years old or more, you should be watching out for overheating. Typically, any aging laptop can begin overheating, and for a variety of reasons, which can cause tons of issues, and even death (sounds like a prescription commercial). But being serious, anything can happen. From seeing a random blue screen, experiencing the sudden loss of data, or finding your hard drive burnt out, most laptops overheat because a fan becomes blocked. We can also experience safety recalls from manufacturers, and when it comes to the world of electronics, this is a completely common occurrence. The particular computer component that tends to suffer these recall issues the most is the battery, a computer component that can become very hot in certain situations. Luckily, recalls can be a simple warning sign for laptop users to catch the issue before it causes actual failure. Other times, like back when the Samsung Galaxy S2 suddenly exploded for example, is the type of recall that “ends up being a reactive measure”, as stated by Neowin.

Today we’re specifically referring to HP, a world leader in computer and laptop manufacturing. Also a company that has faced two recalls in the past 5 years, and is currently facing another. Back in 2011, the tech company had overheating issues with laptops purchased between July 2007 to May 2008, where an upwards of 85 thousand of the devices experienced seriously hazardous overheating batteries (yet, no reports of actual explosions). Then, in 2014, HP had to recall millions of laptop power cords across the world. Said to be HP and Compaq notebook and netbook systems from September 2010 and June 2012, they were overheating and causing fires, melting, and charring.

And so, this brings us to the latest recall HP has been facing. The company made an official announcement to the entire world that its batteries living in notebooks from March 2013 and August 2015 were running the risk of overheating. Hence, the company recalled the affected laptops, and stated on its website, “The affected batteries were shipped with specific HP, Compaq, HP ProBook, HP Envy, Compaq Presario, and HP Pavillion notebook computers, and have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to customers”.

Due to the common nature of overheating issues in laptops, it is important to take HP’s (quite serious) advice to download its very own utility for checking “whether their device has one of the affected batches of batteries, and will advise on what to do next” (Computing UK). If you have one of the aforementioned families of HP models sold within the time periods of March 2013 to August 2015, getting in touch with HP to return your damaged battery is within your best interest. To no surprise, HP will provide a free battery replacement for those affected.