Cracking Monitor Hinge - Page 8

Hey caddude22.

My experience with eMachines mirrors yours completely. From start to finish it took about a week for eMachines to replace the LCD shell on my laptop because of the cracked hinge. However, I am certain that the hinge will crack again, so now I keep the laptop open at all times. I cover it with a plastic bag when I am not using it. How about yourself? Are you doing anything differently now to keep it from cracking again in the near future? If it does crack what will you do this time?

The same thing.......

I do the same thing that you do.
I just don't know how to stop the crack but Im thinking how to fix it.

Howdy kids...

...add me to the list of notebook owners with the cracked hinges. I bought my m6809 at BB on 5/3/04 and just noticed that I have the well-documented hinge cracks on both of my hinges.

Like so many others, I am also otherwise VERY pleased with the machine...


...it seems that so far the flaw hasn't affected the operation of anyone's laptop is this correct? (sorry, I just skimmed the 10 page thread so if this has been covered, my apologies)

I'd also like to throw out a theory of mine on why the LEFT hinge specifically seems to be most vulnerable and the first to go:


MOST people are righthanded. SO... I would guess that most righthanded people have a tendency to pull the screen latch with their right thumb, and lift the LCD with their LEFT hand somewhere on the left side of the screen as I have a tendency to do. This of course will naturally put more stress on the left hinge than the right. I am righthanded, and the left hinge is visibly more cracked than the right one.

If I were a betting man, I'd put money on this being why the left hinge seems to be more vulnerable than the right. Again, sorry if this has already been theorized, but I'm too lazy to read the entire thread right at the moment.

Also... I have an idea for a possible stop-gap solution. I don't know how many of you are familiar with metal duct tape (not the stuff you get at the grocery store and tape boxes with) but the actual METAL tape that professional AC installers use. It seems if this were applied carefully, that it may lend some structural integrity to cracked hinges, or perhaps prevent them. Since the foil tape is silver, if done correctly I'm guessing it wouldn't look bad either.

Just an idea...

hi grandpa...

we welcome you to the cracked hinge screen basement of almighty emachines.

your analyze for the cause of crack might be valid, but not with me, i am right handed and my right hinge is cracked, on top of that i dont lift the screen from either side, i use my pointing finger to lift it from middle after i open it with my thumb, or sometimes i use my left hand thumb to lift it from middle.

there might be many causes but at the end this fault is because of low quality material used in this particular side, the material being used might be ok for none hinged/moveable parts.

there is another point annoying me is the high heat that ac adaptor produce, man its damn hot, but glad there is no problem yet with the ac adaptor, but its still very hot for ac adaptor

Ugh...

Well, I suppose it is time to add my two cents to the emachines cracked hinge fiasco. I purchased an emachine m6809 about five weeks ago and just noticed two small stress cracks on the outer left side of the monitor hinge. So far the laptop has been great, but this is a little disappointing, though not entirely unexpected. My questions are...

1. How can a tell if these cracks are superficial, or more serious structural problems?

2. Will this be covered under the standard emachines one year warranty? For some reason I couldn't purchase an extended warranty here in Arizona.

3. If it is covered, when should I send it in? Would it be better just to wait until either the hinge completely gives or the warranty is almost over?

This isn't really the first post I wanted to make here on the forums. I would like to thank everyone who runs and posts on here for putting together a great community.

LOL I'm not nearly old enough to be a grandpa yet.


Anyway, it was just an idea as to why the left hinge appears to fail first. I highly doubt that different material is used in the left hinge from the right. They look identically constructed...


The actual reasons which may or may not cause the left hinge to crack first is open to discussion-- but you're right: the cracking hinge situation is definitely a problem of materials and/or design. It's a great laptop, but this is a problem that should not be happening.

There's undeniably a design flaw causing this.

another point, the 2 inside hinges look loosy, but i am not sure if everybody has the same problem (spacially the cracked hinged ppl) or this is common in notebooks, however it might be the inside hinges are loosy while the outside (which inmo have less role in performing the open and close operation) is very tight, therefore stronger power being applied to the tighty outside hinges which causing them to crack (they are tight plus your close and open feeding more power so they are getting cracked)

I believe the consensus (I hope I spelt that right) is their superficial...

I got it covered under it...some people say they didn't...
BTW: I live in Arizona too...Valley area, hot and dry eh...

Depends on your liking. I'm sure it'll crack again, you'll just have to see if your lucky...

Blue Heart,

The inside of the hinges (If I am understanding what you are saying) are not really connected to the screen anyway. See the pictures here...

http://www.wereshark.com/m6805/

the link is not working, i do not know why.

however, i think i need to clarify more, what i meant inside, the next hinges to the ones that are getting cracked, i didnt mean inside by the pipe whici is inside (under the cover) of the cracked hinges. hope this is clear now

ok..i was wondering if i call emachines..and get the box and stuff to send my laptop to them....do i have a certain time when it needs to mailed...or can i mail it whenever im ready to send it....cuz im not ready...until theres a known fix...but i would like to have the box ready...incase...i dunno if im making sense...but i would like to know...thanks

I've had my box ready to send for about 6 weeks...I'm gonna call and see if they still are ready for it tommorow and I'll send it out...

Any of you who have had your notebooks fixed by eMachines. Do you know if they have really *fixed* the problem or is it possible that you'll have the same issue again in a few months? Did eMachines say what they did to resolve the problem? Has anyone who has had theirs fixed had the problem reoccur?

Just got home with my new M6811, replaced for my second cracked M6809. That machine developed a crack in the right hinge just yesterday, to match the one that has been in the left hinge for about a month.
Fact that I paid $1649 pre-rebate while this is $1699 pre-rebate, no problem.
Fact that I got a $100 eMachines rebate on M6809 while M6811 has no such rebate, no problem.
They swapped me even-up with no out-of-pocket expense whatsoever, under the ESP warranty. They did take the UPC barcode stickers off so I wouldn't try to get the $100 BB rebate on this one as well, but I had no problems at all with that. The $150 I didn't have to pay to get a 6811 for my 6809 more than makes up the difference between the eMachines warranty and the BB ESP warranty.
I'm a happy guy

At most they could have asked you to pay $50 since your receipt shows you paying $1649 for the M6809.

I have the hinge on mine (M6809)
I didn't notice untill I saw this post.

What can we do now?

I bought a refurb off tigerdirect.ca and have yet to see a crack. I guess that could have been what was wrong with it in the first place.

For what it's worth. I called eMachines about my M6809 hinge crack this morning. Tech support gave me an RMA and said the "box" would be there within 2-3 days.
Any of you that have had this repair performed, does eMachines replace the WHOLE LCD casing????? Or is it a WHOLE LCD/LCD casing assembly? Plus, how many of you have encountered the dreaded "dead pixel" problem after this repair?
Thanks in advance!
FordTech :-D

Cracked Hinge - M6810

Well.... I after reading all the posts on the cracked hinges, and everything else, I decided to purchase the M6810 anyways. Knowing about the cracked hinges I have been VERY VERY VERY carefull with my notebook. I bought it on Tuesday (2 days ago) and have used it once (it still has the plastic on it). I now have a crack on the left hinge that mysteriously showed up overnight. It was not there last night when I went home, and was there this morning when I took it out of my notebook case. I have been so damn carefull with this thing, but I still managed to get the crack in less than two days after purchase. I really enjoy the notebook, it totally screems on battlefield vietnam, but I am really upset that the crack has shown up in such a short time. Just thought I would post to let others know the problem persists in the M6810 as well.

More cracks

Returned my m6810 to bestbuy for a new one. No questions asked - props to bestbuy. Got the new one, being the retard I was I didnt opt for the functionality test - well i should have, the left hinge was cracked out of the box. Returned that one for a new one, no crack yet... we will see how it goes. Went out for a so havn't played with it yet.