Broken Laptop Hinge - What to do?

[molotovwars]

So, after having my laptop for 4 years now the left hinge just broke. Or at least I think it did (I assume its the hinge). The laptop is a Toshiba M45-S165. Here are two pictures of the hinge




The hinge still works and looking at the part http://www.excelcomputerinc.com/html/de ... egory=misc I don't know if that would quite solve the problem. Not to mention the part is out of stock everywhere and one place that might have it was charging $80...

I can shut the laptop and it closes securely, but I have to slide the the screen back a little and then slide the piece the sticks up in the first photo back under the keyboard/speaker area. When I have to open it again that piece gets caught if I don't open it carefully.

So for right now its operational, but I think there will be trouble still to come. Maybe the casing for the hinge just broke, but I don't quite know what to do. I don't think the hinge part I found would fix the problem, and its overpriced. Any advice?

[lost_within]

Ouch....yeah, its broke....Its hard to tell by the pictures, but normally NOT something I would say on ANY part of a computer...but, super glue? Or try and find a deal on ebay

[molotovwars]

I've been looking at it more closely and yeah I think I can see which piece is the hinge and how it broke. I am thinking about taking it apart to get a closer look, but there is a great chance that I wouldn't be able to put it back together with the broken hinge.

After changing the search terms I used in eBay I was able to find a pair of hinges (left and right) for $24.99 with $9.99 shipping...no doubt excessive, but I guess I'd be willing to pay $35 to fix my laptop and delay purchasing a new one, and I guess I'd gain some knowledge about my computer in the process.

[otaku]

if you can fix it for 35 sure may even be fun I love working on them however these things are nowhere near as expensive as they were 4 years ago especially if you buy used I mean netbooks go new for a few hundred and some very nice machines top out at 1-2k (buy used its even better I saved 1200 on hardware this year getting some very nice machines at huge discounts)

[leemachine]

From the pics it kinda looks like the screw may have been stripped out of their mounts. You may want to take it apart first before you order the hinge brackets and see if what the hinges mount to are still ok. Alot of times when a hinge fails, it will break the bottom case chassis too. That bezel that covers the speakers should pop off easily enough. (there may be a couple screws on the bottom though)

[molotovwars]

if you can fix it for 35 sure may even be fun I love working on them however these things are nowhere near as expensive as they were 4 years ago especially if you buy used I mean netbooks go new for a few hundred and some very nice machines top out at 1-2k (buy used its even better I saved 1200 on hardware this year getting some very nice machines at huge discounts)

Yeah I was probably going to just replace it with a netbook eventually. All I do is check email, watch somethings on Youtube, steam music and other minor tasks. No games. I was going to wait until Windows 7, so I may just fix it now and see how it holds up.

From the pics it kinda looks like the screw may have been stripped out of their mounts. You may want to take it apart first before you order the hinge brackets and see if what the hinges mount to are still ok. Alot of times when a hinge fails, it will break the bottom case chassis too. That bezel that covers the speakers should pop off easily enough. (there may be a couple screws on the bottom though)

That may be what happened, it certainly looks that way. I will probably open it up before I order anything. The hinges seem easy enough to replace and I know there are plenty of the speaker bezels for my laptop online ($2), but I'm not really sure what I'd need to replace or if it would even be an option if the hinge mounts are also fucked. I'll open it up and share what I find.

[otaku]

I believe if you do buy now many systems come with an windows 7 upgrade option for not much more also

[millerjm2]

The same thing happened to me a few months ago, however I believe both hinges broke. When the first broke I ignored the problem b/c the computer was still operational albeit a little difficult to work with. As a result of my laziness, ineptitude the second broke because I was putting all the pressure of opening and closing the laptop on one hinge.

I also found my parts on eBay and it was surprisingly easy, well not really, to fix. I guess the mechanics of it all were quite simple but it was time consuming. I was going to do what you did and just buy a brand new computer but after thinking about it, and the life left in the computer, I opted to spend $100 as opposed to $800.