A Dell Inspiron 15 came in from near the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in the West End, which is only a two minute drive from our Perth Road workshop. The booking said two words: hinge broken. That sounds like a small fault, but it gets a bit worse every time the lid goes up and down.
Here's how a lid like this holds together. There's a plastic back cover, and a plastic front frame that sits round the screen. The two clip together all the way round. The hinges are screwed into the lid at the corners, so every time you open the laptop they tug on that plastic. If a hinge works loose or the plastic around it gives way, the frame starts to peel off the back.
That's what we found. The photos show the laptop on our bench mat with the bottom cover off. With the lid open, the front frame had bowed away from the back cover along the hinge edge, and the little clips that should hold the two together were sitting out in the gap. Down at the corner by the hinge the plastic had broken, with a curled strip sticking out and a ragged mount behind it. From the inside you can see the hinge itself, wearing a coat of dust.
The fix was a new back cover and a new set of hinges, fitted together. Doing both is the usual way with this job, because fresh plastic on tired hinges would only split again. A dab of glue or a strip of tape might hold for a day or two, but the hinges keep pulling every time the lid moves. Because it needed proper parts, this wasn't a same day repair. We ordered them in.
The laptop came in on a Thursday, the parts were on order from the Friday, and it was ready on the Tuesday morning, five days after booking. Most of that was waiting on the parts, with a weekend in the middle. The customer collected it later the same day.
Most folk put up with a wobbly lid for a while, because the laptop still works. That's fair enough, but it's worth getting it looked at early. Forcing a split lid open and shut makes the crack bigger. The cable that feeds the screen runs through the same hinge area, and a lid that keeps flexing can pinch it or crack the screen. Catch it early and it's usually just a back cover and hinges job. If yours has started to creak or gap at the corners, drop it in and we'll take a look.
Need the same repair? See our full Laptop Repair Dundee | Repair Alliance service for pricing and what's covered.
