does anyone know how much credit they give you if u return the 6809 for the instore credit. what i mean is that i bought it for 1649.99 but then i sent in the $250 rebate so does best buy give me 1649.99 credit or 1399.99. if they give me 1649.99 doesnt that mean that i made a profit? just a thought. i still love my 6809 but now both of my hinges are cracked.

bump

That's a very good question. Personally, I'd find it hard to believe that they would give instore credit for just the reason you pointed out. It would be too hard to keep track of the rebate issues. If you did get credit, you would also be able to cancel your ESP and get back any of the residual value.

P.S. I am assuming zack was talking about those folks with the BB ESP.

Well, in order to send in the rebate you must cut off the bar code. They'll notice this obviously and most likely dock you the amount...

I've read many posts about the cracked hinge and was really surprised I was not alone. My friend got the same laptop and it happend to him as well.

I bought my emachine m6805 notebook back at the end of february and low and behold about a couple months later I noticed a crack on the back left hinge.

I called up emachine and was put on hold but it was a bearable hold unlike Dell was. I spoke to someone who spoke english and explained my situation.

He gave me no hassel, no questions and said that he would send out a shipping box with all the materials I needed to ship my laptop back to emachine for warranty work.

Two days later I received a nice cardboard box, fully padded with packaging instructions and Fed EX tracking slip already filled out for me to slap on the box when shipping it back. The foam is perforated into strips that you tear out depending on the size of the laptop.

Next day I shipped it out and 3 days later I got my laptop back in mint condition.

I believe it took about a week from calling to getting my laptop back.

I was absolutely impressed with the customer support I received. I also bought the Best Buy plan and regret that I did. I would have rather have gone with the Emachine extended warranty for service like that.

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?

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

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