[Help] Laptop hinge repairs

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mr_norris

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I am in a bit of a pickle. A few months ago, I created this thread where I whined about Rectron and Gigabyte. Things have gotten worse. To summarize:

* I got the part I needed from Rectron
* I replaced it myself
* In September, I opened it up and saw that the same thing happened again (screw mounts around hinges are wrecked).
* I then took it back to Rectron to sort out
* I got word from them that the laptop is now EOL, and Gigabyte can't send any replacement parts, so there is nothing they can do.

I am in a real jam, as the laptop itself is in pretty much mint condition, aside from the hinges. But a laptop that you can't open or close isn't ideal. By the looks of it, I have two viable solutions here:

* Find a repair centre of sorts that can fix it for me. I suspect that this may involve some DIY sort of work. These people seem pretty legit, so I've mailed them.
* DIY work myself, where I drill through the casing, and use screws / rivets / whatever as mounting points.

Does anyone have any advice?
 
Who can I contact to fix my laptop in CPT? My down button does not work at all.
 
I was searching through the threads I created to see if I have posted something before and came across this one, so I figured I'd drop a small update.

First of all, irepairer.co.za don't respond to mails - so if you ever need help for them, perhaps calling is a better idea. But the lack of a response was a real buzz kill - considering I was willing to give them my money to fix my problem. Not answering emails in this day and age gets bad marks from me IMO. Lost customer for life. As did a lot of other shops claiming to be able to fix hinges and not replying.

Whining aside, I fixed the problem myself. I have tried many fail epoxies (mostly pratley stuff) and they were all useless. They have a picture of a bulldozer being held up by their epoxy onto a crane on their packaging - all LIES LOL. I got so sick and tired of the long "strip laptop, plaster with glue, get disappointed because it doesn't stick, clean up and reassemble" process that I resorted to sticking toothpicks together to get an idea of the strength. I have spent so much money on epoxy's, one would think that I am a handy man if they had to see my collection.

I hit one unexpected winner though - Q-bond. That stuff is the freaking bomb. You can get it from places like Makro or Builders. It is quite challenging to work with it when you have ape hands and need to fix tiny laptop things, but otherwise, I have yet to have that stuff break on me. My laptop has been fully assembled and working properly since the end of December now. I had to take out the hinges again to tighten them up again, and repair another new broken screw mount, but all the other work I have done is proper solid.

Anyway, I hope that this helps someone if they are in the same jam and come across this thread.
 
mr_norris said:
I was searching through the threads I created to see if I have posted something before and came across this one, so I figured I'd drop a small update.

First of all, irepairer.co.za don't respond to mails - so if you ever need help for them, perhaps calling is a better idea. But the lack of a response was a real buzz kill - considering I was willing to give them my money to fix my problem. Not answering emails in this day and age gets bad marks from me IMO. Lost customer for life. As did a lot of other shops claiming to be able to fix hinges and not replying.

Whining aside, I fixed the problem myself. I have tried many fail epoxies (mostly pratley stuff) and they were all useless. They have a picture of a bulldozer being held up by their epoxy onto a crane on their packaging - all LIES LOL. I got so sick and tired of the long "strip laptop, plaster with glue, get disappointed because it doesn't stick, clean up and reassemble" process that I resorted to sticking toothpicks together to get an idea of the strength. I have spent so much money on epoxy's, one would think that I am a handy man if they had to see my collection.

I hit one unexpected winner though - Q-bond. That stuff is the freaking bomb. You can get it from places like Makro or Builders. It is quite challenging to work with it when you have ape hands and need to fix tiny laptop things, but otherwise, I have yet to have that stuff break on me. My laptop has been fully assembled and working properly since the end of December now. I had to take out the hinges again to tighten them up again, and repair another new broken screw mount, but all the other work I have done is proper solid.

Anyway, I hope that this helps someone if they are in the same jam and come across this thread.
Click to expand...
Agree 100% that not answering emails is a big no no from me when it comes to service. Beware @AfricanTech , take note
 
The hinge on my MSI GE76 broke a few months ago. It was just outside of warranty and to be honest this laptop is basically a desktop replacement so I'd opened / closed the hinge only handful of times. Not great that a R65k laptop is built so poorly but it's apparently a common issue that hasn't been addressed in multiple iterations now. There's even a class-action lawsuit in the US about it.

I ended up ordering a replacement back cover off Alibaba, and replaced it myself after watching a few YouTube videos. I also adjusted the 'tightness' of the hinge, and threw a bit of Q20 on it as well. Not sure about other brands but the MSI's seem to be 'over-tightened' at the factory which causes the screws to rip out of the moulding of the back cover.

Meanwhile I've got an old Sony Vaio that no longer powers on, which my 1yr old literally sits on like it's a chair with a backrest and that's absolutely fine. I'm not an Apple fanboy but my work's Macbook Air is also build to last forever. I'm not sure how some brands get this so wrong. It's a solved problem.
 
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