Broken plastics or hinges on your laptop?

One of the weakest points on most laptops these days are around the hinge areas where the hinges connect to the base cover or the palmrest. Most of the time these are made of plastic.

How can I prevent this happening?

Very often laptops can get knocked or dropped by accident, however on other occassions a common cause of broken hinges or turrets can be caused by picking the laptop up by the lid whilst already open.

This can cause damage to the base cover, the palmrest, the hinges themselves and also in some cases the monitor bezel, lcd and wifi cables too.

The simplist way to minimize this risk is to never pick your laptop up by the lid and also when opening the laptop, lift the lid from the centre rather than one of the edges.

What do I if I suspect I have broken plastics or hinges?

You can often tell if you have broken plastics visually, however in the case of broken hinges or turrets it is not always possible as these are internal so cannot be seen so easily. The telltale signs of these are often more “play” or excess movement in the hinge on one side compared to the other when opening the lid. One side may also move easier than the other.

If you do think that you have any damage to the hinges or plastics of your laptop, our advice is to stop using it immediately and have it inspected internally.

If you continue to use the laptop without having plastics repaired, then very often a small crack or sngle broken turret will develop into something further also damaging more parts.

When left too long, it is often possible that the plastics can become so damaged that when opening the laptop up to investigate it may not be possible to put it back together again without replacing the parts.

This is the main reason we suggest having it professionally inspected the first sign of any possible damage before it gets worse.