I’ve just finished getting my laptop set up the way I like it, including maximising the RAM and upgrading the screen. I opened it up to use it, and the screws on the hinge tore through the plastic.
To top it off, the plastic on the bottom of the laptop, the side that’s been removed here, has also broken.
My wife definitely didn’t drop the laptop while she was tidying up though…
EDIT: Apologies all, I’m having trouble with Lemmy today, and it’s not letting me reply.
I’ll try to reply tomorrow, but in the meantime;
It’s a Stonebook branded Clevo n751BU, a 7th gen i5. It’s held up respectably well until it appears to have been knocked in the corner where the hinge is. The plastics on both sides of the hinge have given out.
I’ve ordered a replacement base, but the palm rest which is pictured is not available anywhere that I can find. I’m going to dismantle the hinge to clean and oil it, then reassemble it slightly less tightly, and epoxy the screws into place. The reason for taking it apart in the first place was to add a third hard drive. It has an nvme drive, and I had two HDDs going spare that can hold my documents and music. They’re being synced now as I was having problems doing it remotely, but once they’re in they can be managed with Syncthing. The laptop shouldn’t need to come apart agin afterwards :)
I’ve been building and repairing computers and laptops for about 30 years, so I’m comfortable with completely stripping it, and can use it as an excuse to give everything a clean again. Short of replacing these HDDs with SSDs, there’s nothing else that can physically be upgraded, so I’m half tempted to glue it shut so that I don’t get tempted again :D
Laptop repair guy here! This problem is common in consumer grade laptops. As far as I am concerned, it’s purposefully weakly designed, because these break a LOT.
Not the hinge is broken, but the mounting points for the screws that keep the hinge in place. Sometimes it breaks on the bottom case, sometimes it breaks on the screen side.
We fix these issues regularly with epoxy (and massive skillz, lol). With most hinges, you can adjust the force a little lighter to relieve the pressure on the mounting points. That way it doesn’t fail again, after repair.
This is why I love the idea of framework laptops
Indeed, different price point though, but shouldn’t be more expensive in the long run. I like what they’re doing and live my AMD 13
Machinist guy here!
Threads fail. Threads are generally the most likely thing to fail in any given mechanism. Generally, when the threads are expected to do more work than just sit there and not move, as in fastening a hinge for example, we try to make sure the threads are all the same kind of material.
I would never expect plastic threads to hold up to repeated use with an iron bolt inside. Something is going to give up, and it’s going to be the soft plastic threads, every single time.
Think about cheap as fuck IKEA furniture, any time they have a bolt to screw in, you install an insert first. We do the same thing in plastic, aluminum, shit even steel sometimes if we want the bolt to fail first.
I believe you misunderstood the problem, the threads are not usually the problem, the problem is the brass heat insert the hinge threads into, the insert just breaks off the plastic with the screw still threaded in, usually because the hinge is a bit too tight/rigid and puts a lot of force into the insert pulling it out
this seems to be the case in this picture as well
How can I adjust the force?
Loosening the screws of the hinge.
Is it possible that some hinges have hidden screws or use a different mechanism?
Yes, absolutely. Not all hinges are adjustable, unfortunately. In fact, I’d argue that most are not. Just have a look at the hinges at your place (doors, cabinets, toilet seat etc.), most will be very simple mechanisms with no inbuilt adjustment.
You can adjust the play mechanically, of course - that is, through application of a certain amount of force via deformation, which can be a destructive process if not done carefully.
There are hinges that expose an axial screw that allows for precise adjustment of hinge friction, but I have not seen those used for laptop display lids (nor did I personally encounter those in the small dimensions you would find on a laptop) . You’ll find examples of those at Misumi or McMaster - Carr.
If your goal is to increase the friction in your laptop’s display lid hinges, you might find that simply tightening all screws of and around the hinge often does the trick. Even though the main axial screw is not meant to be user accessible, it serves basically the same function and can tighten up the hinge. Tightening the screws used for mounting will ensure the lid doesn’t wobble. You will have to (partially) take your laptop apart for that, naturally.
If your hinge doesn’t have an axial screw at all and uses, let’s say a pin, you might have to employ another method, but that would really depend on the actual mechanism being used.
As far as I can see without stripping everything yet, it looks like it’s a pin. I might just have to clean and lube it, and hope for the best.
Let the hate flow through you!
I just barely got this joke. Nice one
Actually if you want a serious answer, I usually try to apply force as close to the hinge as possible when opening and closing the lid. This way the full length of the screen isn’t acting as a lever multiplying the force on the relatively short span of the hinge mounting bracket.
I definitely agree this is too common a problem not to be by design.
This is correct and good advice. I’d like to add that it’s also an option to glue in a threaded metal insert in case a self - tapping plastic screw was used and the original thread is stripped.
I just used the threaded metal inserts and seat them with the soldering iron to use orignal screws and have had great luck
Edit/ I should clarify that it’s been a few years since I’ve done one of these repairs and may not be the best option on a newer/slimmer model
Absolutely, if there is enough plastic left, melting is one of the best options. That also enables mending plastic by melting in metal pins or strips via a cheap plastic welder for 10 bucks (success can be great, but it’s highly dependent on the geometry and how things broke).
Edit: no, as I said, that’s absolutely fine if there is a chunk of sturdy plastic to accept the insert. I just wanted to present another plastic repair technique for the sake of completeness, if somebody stumbles into this comment section.
Yup, I do a lot of 3d printed projects and use these all the time. They’re great
Could be sacrificial because the plastic case is cheaper/easier to replace than whatever else would break instead of it were stronger.
Probably more so cheaper to mold the plastic case with weak threads than any other function.
No I think its just cheaper, if it was stronger you normally would have a metal plate or the entire base would be metal. The only time I have seen those fail was actually the hinges themselves and not the attachment points. If the metal plate or base somehow got severely damaged I doubt it would cost much more to repair and its still unlikely to damage anything else.
I very much hated working on hinge damage.
Yep, it’s the mounting point here. As someone pointed out below, the insert that holds the screw has ripped out of the plastic. The base of the laptop was already broken, so put extra pressure on this part.
I’m going to strip everything out and epoxy the inserts back in place, then epoxy over the bottom part of the hinge once the screws are in. The laptop should never need to be opened again, so a bit of overkill won’t hurt here.
I’m going to try to loosen the hinge slightly too, but it looks like a pin design rather than a screw, so it might just be a case of cleaning and lubing it instead.