Dell laptop hinge issues

[Croissant-Emoji]

Hi everyone

 

We have a large batch of Dell Vostro 3520s bought by a predecessor that are one by one failing with the right hinge tearing out of the screen, currently a quarter of all units by the end of the 1 year warranty. Some googling suggests that this is a very widely known issue, but I was wondering if anyone has been able to get anything out of Dell over this? So far radio silence from the account manager at Dell I've emailed, I'm sure I remember talking to regional Edu reps at some point (though that could have been HP)

 

Many thanks!

 

🥐

[PotNoodleTech]

Same happened to all of our Acer chromebooks. 90% faliure rate by year 4. Deffo an manufacturing defect.

 

Lesson learned for me, I'll never buy an Acer, or 100 Acers, or 1000 Acers ever again.

 

Dell hinges have eventually gone on really old 11" models. More wear and tear than manufacturing defect.

 

To be honest lenovo are the only ones that seem to not have hinge issues.

[jmak]

We buy almost exclusively Dell computers, but one team bought a set of 12 HP 360° hinged model last year and we've had a 25% failure rate on the hinges so far

[3s-gtech]

Lenovo had chronic issues on the E140/5 series, they were absolute pap. Brass rivnuts into a plastic base which ripped out. I used to drill through and bolt them.

[Scrumpy]

Hi,

 

We have approx 25 Vostro 3510's, about half of which have had the left hinge fail in the same way. I logged every problem with Dell support, who required photos for evidence, but all hinges have been repaired free of charge. If the screen had been affected as well (ie. cracked) this would have been chargeable though. No admittance that there's a design/component fault, but at least all faults have been rectified. The warranties for our Vostros run out at the end of the month (approx 3 years old), so hopefully we won't have any more failures. I usually buy Dell PC's & laptops where budget allows, so a bit disappointing, but doesn't put me off Dell as I've supported their products for years and generally have few problems.

[Dos_Box]

It may be that it is worth asking a vendor what the MTBF for a particular model's hinges are? The manufacturers must surely test these, and in a high-impact environment such as schools, and that would be very useful information to have when assessing new laptop purchases.

[Croissant-Emoji]

That's interesting Scrumpy, ours only had 1 year warranty. I have actually spoken to an account manager at Dell now and while they pushed back that there's no manufacturing defect (it is more of a design flaw), they want my case numbers and hopefully I can get a discounted extended warranty out of them. Honestly they feel really naff and cheap anyway, I would definitely have chosen something else to be staff devices given the choice.

[Scrumpy]

We paid extra for the 3 year warranty, but I wouldn't get Vostros again even for staff use (which they were for). We've got a few Latitude's since then and they seem a lot better, costwise though we'd struggle to get them for every member of staff.

[DavR]

We had this problem extensively on the Latitude E5530 a good few years ago now. With those ones they did admit a manufacturing fault and gave an extended warranty.

 

Of course they kept breaking after the end of that warranty, so I got pretty adept at replacing hinges. The hinges were pretty easy to get, the difficulty was getting replacement LCD rear covers.

[Aprice]

Also about 90% failure rate on the Acer hinges, and about 50% on the acer power connectors

[DavR]

Would people be happy to share model numbers on the Acer Chromebooks they've been seeing these failures on?

 

We're shopping for Chromebooks soon, and would rather not get burnt like we did on the Lenovo 300e....

[PotNoodleTech]

Just avoid acer completely.

 

What was the 300e issues? I've still got 350 out in the field. Only real issue with those is you can't get replacement touch screens for reasonable money. Have standardised on 100e now for that reason.

Edited November 5, 2024 by PotNoodleTech

[mikes]

We have Lenovo 100e's no problems with those, though the LCD panels on the latest gen 100e aren't very strong - had a bunch smashed by students while in their bags, the old gen didn't have this problem

Lenovo Windows laptops however we've had a large amount of the USB-C charging ports fail, the newer ones have 2 of them though so it's not a massive deal. But when the only USB-C port fails the unit needs a new mainboard.

 

Acer chromebooks all the hinges fail by the 3rd year - the hinges go into those brass "nuts" or holders, but they are only held in by the plastic chassis which soon wears away. As soon as I see an Acer chromebook with a slightly loose hinge I'll open it up and superglue the brass nut things back into place to stop it getting worse.

[DavR]

Just avoid acer completely.

 

What was the 300e issues? I've still got 350 out in the field. Only real issue with those is you can't get replacement touch screens for reasonable money. Have standardised on 100e now for that reason.

 

The 300e was mainboard failures, either they just won't take power one day, or they won't boot, I think dead storage chips. Either fault is a mainboard failure, so a write off outside of warranty.

 

For us this problem was mostly with the 300e 2nd Gen MTK. We've also got a batch of 300e 2nd Gen AMD that haven't really given us any trouble apart from accidental damage, so I think it was just the MediaTek variants. I'm still crossing Lenovo off my list for our next Chromebook procurement, though, I just don't need that hassle again.

[PotNoodleTech]

The 300e was mainboard failures, either they just won't take power one day, or they won't boot, I think dead storage chips. Either fault is a mainboard failure, so a write off outside of warranty.

 

For us this problem was mostly with the 300e 2nd Gen MTK. We've also got a batch of 300e 2nd Gen AMD that haven't really given us any trouble apart from accidental damage, so I think it was just the MediaTek variants. I'm still crossing Lenovo off my list for our next Chromebook procurement, though, I just don't need that hassle again.

 

Interesting mate. Not had that to be honest. Would you happen to have any working screens on those mainboard failed ones or are you keeping them for yourself?

 

Cheers

[DavR]

Interesting mate. Not had that to be honest. Would you happen to have any working screens on those mainboard failed ones or are you keeping them for yourself?

 

Cheers

 

PM me.

 

I've only got a few spares at the moment, but, we might be early retiring this batch if I can get the funding.

[MrEprise]

The 300e was mainboard failures, either they just won't take power one day, or they won't boot, I think dead storage chips. Either fault is a mainboard failure, so a write off outside of warranty.

 

For us this problem was mostly with the 300e 2nd Gen MTK. We've also got a batch of 300e 2nd Gen AMD that haven't really given us any trouble apart from accidental damage, so I think it was just the MediaTek variants. I'm still crossing Lenovo off my list for our next Chromebook procurement, though, I just don't need that hassle again.

 

Not sure about the Chromebook versions of these but I recall seeing a few posts on Reddit where people were recommending updating the USB-C controller firmware on the Windows 100e and 300e, as the firmware version these shipped with would cause the controllers to slowly die and stop taking any power.

[Fazza]

Seen this with plenty of different laptop brands over the years; Acer, Dell, Lenovo and HP. Sometimes you can get a replacement bezel/cover that can resolve the issue or there are plenty of youtube videos showing you how you can glue the hinge back in to place as well but I've not had a chance to try that method myself yet as (touch wood) the hinges on our current cheap laptops seem to be holding strong, for now...

[I_just_work_here]

We've had a similar issue with the Latitudes of the same model, although we've had more failures with the DC charging port failing, which we've had repaired on over half of our batch! The lids are also a bit odd, if you open the lid whilst the laptop is just flat on your desk, it'll push the base of the laptop up as the bottom of the lid catches the desk, eventually tearing the hinge or wearing it out.

[mullet_man]

We had this problem extensively on the Latitude E5530 a good few years ago now. With those ones they did admit a manufacturing fault and gave an extended warranty.

 

Of course they kept breaking after the end of that warranty, so I got pretty adept at replacing hinges. The hinges were pretty easy to get, the difficulty was getting replacement LCD rear covers.

 

Saw this thread and thought of the E5520/E5530 issues we were plagued with a few years ago. We had 5 year warranties with ours, and Dell ran out of replacement hinges and ended up replacing the laptops with E5550/5570. So we must have got about 30 replacement laptops in the end.