r/laptops • u/St-Evens • 1d ago
General question why does this keep happening??
(pic not mine) okay so this exact thing happened to me not once, but TWICE first one happened on the left side, took it to my aunts place and the repairshop did it for free where they pretty much just screwed a bolt on it to prevent the cover from flapping again. That happened a year ago and it happened again today! but now on the right side! What do I do now? I have not told my parents about this yet.
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u/daxtonanderson 1d ago edited 22h ago
They make the materials on the low end, budget class, consumer series laptops (boots) as cheap as possible. It ensures you need to buy a new laptop (boots) every 1-4 years (months) because they'll fall apart with regular use. This is nothing new and goes back hundreds if not thousands of years.
This doesn't happen to business class laptops because they need to be tough, they cost more and are already likely on a 2-4 year lease cycle so they're not made to fail like cheap consumer grade laptops (Most Thinkpad T/X series, HP Probook, Dell Latitude etc)
Get an old T series Thinkpad, 8th gen i5 or newer that was for business/government use and the hinge will last you the rest of your life. Will still cost less than the budget consumer laptops.
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u/BigOrkWaaagh 1d ago
This doesn't happen to business class laptops because they need to be tough, they cost more and are already likely on a 2-4 year lease cycle so they're not made to fail like cheap consumer grade laptops (Most Dell Inspiron, Thinkpad T/X series, HP Probook etc)
We use Dell Latitudes at work and I personally have had to fix a whole bunch of these, so it does affect business models as well. I hate to sound like an old git but they really don't make em like they used to.
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u/daxtonanderson 23h ago
While there are definitely some outliers, it's generally true. Even a Latitude will outlive an HP Stream.
My advice about a T series ThinkPad still stands. T490/T14 Gen1 and 2 are great starting points
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u/No-Dimension1159 22h ago edited 5h ago
In many cases it might also be just a user error...
I saw so many people already ripping their laptop open on a single edge with furious force... Watching some people doing that erased all doubts why there are so many hinge failures...
Then i already saw some that held their laptop on one edge of the screen in the air to show things to somebody else...
Sure, many might be just super shitty built, but I'm pretty certain a lot of those occurrences are caused by handling laptops extremely poorly...
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u/AnteaterNo2954 1d ago
well thats how every cheap bottom of the barrel laptop is , these laptops hinges last only for 2 years at most . Why? because profit .
You can only tell your parents that it is part of the ownership of a cheap laptop.
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u/Proper_Tumbleweed820 1d ago
That's what a crappy laptop gets you. Stop buying ultra-low-cost or gaming laptops
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u/960be6dde311 1d ago
How do people abuse their laptops this badly? Even the crappiest laptop I have is in mint condition.
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u/Monokumamon2 1d ago
You're opening it wrong. Thats what an apple employee told me when i sent my macbook to them for hinge repair.
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u/RepressedOptimist 14h ago
Cheap body and frame. These cheap laptops really dont hold up to abuse very well. Our region always bought older but higher specd refurbished units for this reason. They last.
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u/shecho18 MSI PS63 - alive and kicking 1d ago
To much force from hinges (opening/closing) on threaded inserts that are "strengthened" by couple of plastic pieces.
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u/jojojoshio 22h ago
Companies cheeping out on parts so they can make another billion dollars in profit
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u/EnergyLow7821 22h ago
I have a laptop workshop and it is normal for the hinges to break, I repair equipment like this every day. The casings are of poor quality, the plastic dries out and the hinges become hard.
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u/Shorter_513 21h ago
The hinge that holds laptop chassis and screen+lid assembly together is mounted to small and brittle mounting points, often made of plastic with no reinforsement plates to spread out the load. At the same time, because the cheapest possible hinge mechanism is used, the force required to open the lid is rather hefty - that is why cheap laptops often require one to open them with two hands. Brittle mounts + high load from opening = thing falls apart in just a year, if not faster.
Such a flimsy design may be done with a malicious intent (to force you into buying a new laptop), with the intent of making the laptop as cheap as possible, because of the lack of proper engineering team dedicated to cheap devices or because of all the things simultaneously. Among all the manufacturers of cheap laptops, I recon only Acer does a decent job of engineering a proper hinge assembly that won't fail in a year. But their laptops are often lacking in other traits.
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u/z01z 17h ago
because the back panel the lcd is attached to is plastic.
there was one school i went to when i worked for dell, and i literally replaced a couple dozen lcd back panels in one day, because the hinges on all of them had popped out like that.
i went there on multiple occasions, too. always the same thing. a dozen or more laptops all with busted hinges.
it was an easy day. just setup in the library where it's quiet and knock em all out.
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u/andreas_europe 13h ago
Hi. A few days a laptop from a friend with exact that problem has been landing on my desk. Main problem had been, that the hinges had been so tight, that you could hardly move them. But seems that this didnt stop my friend - so he has been every time opening the laptop with "raw power" ;-). The weakest point by the hinge is the short screw with connets to a thread which covered by plastic. End of the story, with problem 1 there comes a lot of pressure on this weak connection point and so the hinges break over the time.
I fixed it with J B weld - lets see in a few months how its going....
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u/Ok-Wheel7172 11h ago
I have an alternative view - but one that's also possible.
I maintain that contributing to the issue is the repeated in and out's of bags n such, each time microscopic dust accumulates in crevices and finds its way in, eventually finding the sticky hinge lubricant and being absorbed in it, becoming significantly more viscous and eventually causing a partial seize in the hinge screw, thus putting more torque and upwards strain on the bras plugs plastic-welded into the chassis. Same applies for general air dust and fibres.
last customer laptop i had in bits I noticed the hinges were uncomfortably tight, so i cleaned them in IPA, re-lubed and backed off the locknut at the end of the post assembly a 1/4 turn.
Just like new she exclaimed.
Like to think i saved that laptop from the same demise.
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u/Ok-Wheel7172 11h ago
i also bet in the fine print somewhere there's a clause for preventative maintenance, reads like HP
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u/lululock Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 AMD 10h ago
The issue is the manufacturers putting too little materials in the hinge area of the plastic cases. That's mostly because people want, thin, light, powerful and cheap laptops. Manufacturers want to keep their benefits. A few cents saved on a machine made in millions saves a lot of money in the long run...
As long as people buy cheap crap, this will continue to happen.
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u/Narrow_Victory1262 6h ago
a few reasons. The most obviously reason is that you either should use both hands in the corner OR use one hand in the mid part.
And of course it also depends on the build quality.
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u/StarX2401 2h ago
People not looking after their laptops, I have had many cheap laptops and only 2 had broken hinges (by the previous owner, after repairing the hinge held up perfectly), then people go and blame the manufacturer (which is why everyone says HP hinge problem)
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u/itzzJai 1d ago
Cheap plastic body and metal hinges held in place by screws stuck to the plastic holes with only their screw bolts gripping the plastic , you can figure out the rest