Anyone else have this problem with their m9700/m9750? - Page 2

Sorry, I really messed up my previous post. I know one guy, a friend, who's had his 9700 for a year and half now. Only complaint: he didn't get his TV tuner adapter with purchase. Called them up and they mailed it to him express shipping, free of charge. On this forum I know over 15 members with 9700s, including HammerHead, Shazza, and E-Dirt (Tridge is his new name). Hammer and Shazza are both community reps and their high number of posts aren't from the OT thread. They post here more than regularly, posting input in almost every single thread. I haven't heard a word of complaint from either of them, nor the other 15 or so members here on the forum in regards to the hinges breaking. And my 7700 is approaching 2 years old. Hinges haven't broken and I have never heard of such either. AW has discontinued the model (it was what? 4 or 5 years old when the stopped buildling it) and I still see lots of posts around here, but none in regards to the hinges. Additionally, my high school gave all of their students laptops that they kept for the 4 years they were in school. Aside from the students who ran theirs over with cars, or dropped them 20+ feet I saw very very few hinges that cracked. Were these 9700s? No, but I still don't think you can take 2 cases of hinges breaking on a certain model and think that AW should "look into it" or pay for the repairs. Personally I think you are at fault, opening the screen too hard or with too much torque. A 17" screen is large, especially for the hinges, but I realized that when I first opened mine and I was always careful with it, opening it slowly and with one hand in the center of the chassis and one on the center of the screen. Equal pressure on the hinges will help prevent one from cracking. Physics tells you that- its a moment arm. Keep harassing me, keep insisting its a design flaw: at the end of the day its your problem and not mine. Good luck and sorry I can't offer any real help.

I'd have to say the picture is alarming, but it's impossible to tell how the laptop was treated. It could be pampered daily, but one drop where the lid hits before the body, it could compromise the hinges.

AW has sold thousands of m9700's, I've only seen these two issues with the hinges, so I don't think deciding there is an inherent issue with the m9700 and it's hinges is warranted at this point.

Unfortunately for the two with this issue, if you can't figure out how to fix it, AW is your only option. This model is exclusively sold by AW in the US, and they've also got a proprietary lid with the grip design.

I would hope Alienware can repair these systems, but out of warranty it's the owners responsibility to cover the bill.

you guys should try and either use like JB weld to glue the plastic pieces together or find a plastic company that make plastic parts and see if they can make them for you...

Ok, so there is a solution, well kind of. Fist off, how did BFisch get off on this whole class action lawsuit deal?? You're the only one who said anything about that, so don't put words in out mouths. Anyways, jb weld wont do it. You have to use such a think layer of it that it just wont hold under that kind of pressure. The only thing that might work would be a form of epoxy. Instead of attempting to glue it all together, i opted to simply remove all friction from the hinge that broke. I simply dismantled that hinge itself and bored the friction rings out slightly and removed the spring. This way, this hinge only acts as alignment and serves no real structural or weight bearing purpose. And yeah, i realize that this puts more stress on the other hinge, but if it comes to that breaking as well, ill just permanently affix the hinges to the screen with epoxy.

And note, that if you do decide to take the route i did, the screen is a little lose and wont have enough friction to hold itself up when at an extreme angle. But its works for me, and im willing to put up with it.

it doesnt take much JB weld to hold anything together...

I cant comment on the durability of the hinges or who is to blame, however i do know for a fact that jb weld is indeed an epoxy. You mix the two chemicals together to form the epoxy, its much stronger than any super glue. Just my two cents.

My m9700 is coming on up on it's first birthday and it has nothing wrong with the lid/hinges/screen. I have opened and closed mine by holding the center point of both the lid and the base and it still feels brand new like the day I opened it.

After a brief experiment I notice that if you attempt to open the lid by using just either one side at a time it is much harder and the lid actually wants to twist which is probably not a good thing which confirms to me that opening it by the center is most likely the best way to keep from putting too much stress on the pivot point. I hope that the 2 owners with a problem find a fix that is acceptable and also realize that Alienware did not design the chassis for the m9700. If it is an apparent design flaw then it would go back to Arima.

All im saying is that after letting the jb weld dry for two solid days, it broke apart the first time i tired to close it.

if JB weld wont hold it together than nothing will. JB Weld is stronger than steel when it comes to holding things together. You might just have to see if the plastic pieces can be made...

lets just hope that there isnt multiple holes all over the damn thing

Yeah, that screw idea is something ive been tossing back and forth as a last option. But i ave a question. When you used jb weld, did you put just enough to hold the plastic pillars in place? Or did you adhere the hinge to it as well? i was thinking about trying to get as much jb weld into that area as i could and see if gluing the hinge to it would work.

I work with epoxy and lots of different glues because I build kiteboards (They are like wakeboards.) and remote control airplanes. If I was going to glue the hinge back together I would use 24 hour epoxy to glue the two pieces back together. All epoxy reaches max strength after about a week but when the week is over, 24 hour epoxy is stronger than faster set up epoxy.

After the two pieces are glued together, I would apply a mix of epoxy and fiberglass bits around the seam. You can buy preground fiberglass at specialty shops or you can buy a little fiberglass and use scissors to make small bits. The fiberglass makes a huge improvement in strength. I would guess epoxy is at least twice as strong with fiberglass. When making high performance gear with fiberglass, we try to squeeze out a lot of the epoxy because excess epoxy adds more weight than strength. The strength comes from the fiberglass. Add fiberglass until the mix is hard to stir and kind of hard to work with. Put as much of the mix as you can around the seam and let it sit for as long as possible, up to a week, before stressing it and that is the strongest joint you can make short of bolting it together. Before applying the epoxy to the plastic, sand it to increase the adhesion surface area.

dt

Just to caution you, if you drill holes and stuff trying to repair it yourself, AW may determine the damage was caused by user modifications... If you're going to try to repair it yourself, I'd send pictures of the issue, and ask AW if you can try to repair it yourself with a drill and screws and still have them repair it if it doesn't work...

Ive found the company overseas that makes the desktop computer cases for alienware. This is so cool...the only difference is they dont have the alienware head on the front....

I thought u knew that already

i didnt know you could order them..

if anything else you could email arima to see if they would supply you with the parts to fix your computer...