Skip to Content

Apple Battery Recall for Powerbook and iBooks

by Laurie A. Duncan May 20th 2005 at 12:46PM

It's deja vu all over again.

In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other international safety authorities, Apple is voluntarily recalling certain lithium ion rechargeable batteries that were sold worldwide from October 2004 through May 2005 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4. These batteries were manufactured by LG Chem, Ltd. of South Korea.

The affected batteries could overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers. Apple has received six consumer reports of these batteries overheating. If you have a recalled battery, please stop using it and order a replacement battery immediately. Once you have removed the battery, plug in the AC adapter to power the computer.

Apple has initiated a worldwide exchange program and will provide eligible customers with a new replacement battery, free of charge.

The recalled batteries include those with model numbers A1061, A1078, and A1079 and serial numbers that begin with HQ441 through HQ507 and 3X446 through 3X510.

apple battery recall

Complete details and the online exchange form are on Apple's website. You can exchange up to 3 batteries using the form. If you have more than 3 recalled batteries, you'll need to  call Apple. 

View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Apple Corporate Peripherals Portables

It's deja vu all over again.In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other international safety...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

6 Comments

Filter by:
hector

whatever you do dont try to get it replaced at an apple store, they wont do it, i was told by apple support to take the battery to the regent street store but it just wasted 4 hours of my time.

May 21 2005 at 3:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MacLifer

My iBook, purchased in Feb '05, had a matching battery. The site is totally bogged down. It comes up with invalid numbers, etc. if you accidentally put any lowercase characters in OR if you refresh while waiting (it takes about FIVE minutes currently!!)... when you refresh, it turns all uppercase letters into lowercase (duh!) and it comes up invalid. Hopefully the site will get patched up quick. C'mon Apple!

May 20 2005 at 8:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brett

I entered my computer serial number and battery serial number on Apple's website for the replacement, and they both came up as invalid, even though my battery is in the range (starts with HQ453). I called Apple and they said the website currently "has an issue" and should be resolved by tonight or tomorrow. I was also told that if the website wasn't fixed I could call back tomorrow when they would have people trained on the battery exchange program to help me. So my advice is to wait a couple of days to see if this is fixed, and hopefully you won't have to be on hold for 23 minutes for basically no reason and then have the rep attempt to sell you more AppleCare for your machine. :>

May 20 2005 at 6:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Small Paul

Note to Apple: buy better batteries.

May 20 2005 at 5:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tex

so my battery in my 12" PB matches their model number, but the serial number for the battery matches that of the 12" ibook, interesting.

May 20 2005 at 1:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Faentur

I have to laugh. My new 15" PowerBook arrives Monday. I'm gonna laugh if the battery needs to be replaced. I worked in education the last time Apple recalled batteries, I remember we had to swap over 100 of them. We actually had our rep at the time, come with a number of boxes of batteries so we didn't have to send every one of them back. What fun. -F

May 20 2005 at 1:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.