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
Yeah this is not a fun one, I have done repairs and now do retail this issue is insanely common. Pretty much all budget laptops have this threaded into cheap plastic and I have had many customers devices hinges fail within 4 months in retail.
From what I can tell you also got quite lucky the hinge snapped on the base and not the screen. I’ve had a couple customers unlucky enough to have it snap on the screen and shatter the glass and or LCD.
The cases where it doesn’t completely destroy the screen or base you can normally use epoxy glue, melting or something similar. But that still is normally a temporary solution it will probably break again. If that can’t be done or a more permanent solution is needed, I’ve found that repairs with a metal plate and bolt seem to last I’ve also seen some people just use an L shaped metal bracket and not close the laptop again…
Regardless its a really annoying thing, I try to purchase and recommend devices with Metal frames (base and screen). Unfortunately even mid range laptops are now following this trend of plastic screwed hinges.
It’s a 7th gen i5, so I’ve definitely had my money’s worth :)
I’m hoping that epoxy will be enough. I’m going to strip everything out, clean and lube the hinge, then epoxy that in and rebuild the rest around it. I’ve got a replacement base, as that was also broken, and as the laptop shouldn’t need to be opened again, I’m hoping that it will hold :)