Hewlett Packard is in damage control after the discovery of a bug that virtually destroys the modems housed on several of its most popular PC brands, but remains unsure of it's impact on Australian customers.
The computer and printer maker was informed of the defect by customers whose modems "abruptly ceased working" on or after Wednesday, February 21.
The modems were installed in certain models of the company's OmniBook XE2, XE3 and Pavillion N3000 and N5000 and XH000 series notebook PC lines.
The bug was originally reported in the US and an Australian spokesperson for HP said it wasn't known how many local customers had been affected by the glitch.
"We don't sell direct, most of our products are sold through resellers," HP Australia's Adrian Weiss told ZDNet.
"We don't have information about the numbers [of these modems] sold," he added.
Weiss refused to comment on the source of the bug found in the modems - manufacturered by ESS Technology - saying the affected product "wasn't a part HP makes".
It took the world's number three computer maker "a couple of days" to come up with a work-around for the modem flaw, according to Weiss.
HP has now posted a message on its Web site to notify users that there is a software patch available for download that will resolve the no-dial-out issue found with ESS modems used in its notebook computers.
More news to follow.
