HP Aust pledges to replace faulty notebook part

HP has announced a voluntary replacement program for customers who may have been affected by a design flaw in certain notebook memory modules. The flaw could potentially have impacted 900,000 notebooks worldwide.

Matt Dalton, market development manager for commercial notebooks at HP Australia, told iTnews that it could have potentially affected 900,000 notebooks worldwide, although he didn't have a breakdown as to how it impacted in individual countries.

Dalton said the problem was uncovered during ongoing testing. The design flaw is found in certain notebook memory modules that are used across the industry, according to a statement issued by HP in the US. HP has said it has put in place a voluntary replacement program for people who had purchased Compaq or HP notebooks with the affected memory modules.

HP says the memory modules weren't manufactured by HP, but were supplied by third party suppliers.

'When used with a prevalent technology architecture found across the industry, the flawed memory modules could potentially result in blue screens, intermittent lock-ups or memory corruption,' according to the HP statement. 'Some of these memory modules were incorporated in certain Compaq and HP notebook PC models.'

'[It's] pretty obscure, but something we thought we should go out and proactively fix,' Dalton said. 'And it's not one of those things that is going to stop the notebook functioning altogether.'

He said that the design flaw didn't affect any currently shipping products.

A spokesperson for HP Australia added that potentially affected memory modules were distributed worldwide in some notebooks -- or in certain memory accessories for these notebooks or as replacement spare parts for these notebooks -- between March 2002 and July 2003.

The notebooks effected include: Compaq Evo Notebook (model numbers: N610c; N610v; N620c; N800c; N800v; N800w; N1000c and N1000v); Compaq Presario (model numbers: 1500; 2800; x1000 and x1200); HP Compaq Business Notebook nx7000; and HP Pavilion zt3000.

Dalton said people who think they might have HP products affected by the design flaw can visit its website at www.hp.com/support/memoryreplacement for details on its Memory Module Replacement Program.