Hey,
Just the other day i open my laptop lid.. and i noticed that it open quite easily... it wont stand up by it self anymore.. can anyone tell me how to make it tighter? i do not want to take it down to a shop and get charged 150 for some one to tighten my hinges... I don't think it would be too hard..
I have a Compaq Presario 1600xl45 notebook.. the hinges aren't broke... (just had them replaced) but they're loose.. I would appresheate the help.. thanks
Hmm... I have a Presario 1700 laptop, the hinge actually snapped off on the left side, thankfully I bought a 5 year warranty and it was replaced with a brand new LCD lid in a week! A real blessing for me, I forgot about the 5 dead pixels I'd gotten used to. They also decided to give me a new 30GB HDD too, the old 20GB one was so loud.
Now I'm not sure about tightening the hinges, I'm kinda shocked the metal snapped in mine, but to get at the screws you have to open the lid somehow, but that would probably damage it?
It wouldn't cost $150 would it?
I went down to compusa.. and they said within 10days they'd look at it.. and charge a flat rate of $150 + parts :|
I work at a repair shop and we specialize in Compaqs. If it's still in warranty, call compaq and they should be able to tell you who the nearest ASP (Authorized Service Provider) is, in which case you can get it repaired for free.
If it's not in warranty youre looking at a price for sure. The parts will run you about 40 - 80 dollars, depending on the shop's markup. (Ours is 100%) and the labor that goes into replacing those is about an hour.
I WOULDNT reccomend taking it to any retail shop.
The bad news is that when those hinges get loose or start to crack, theres nothing you can do but replace them.
Thanks for your reply andrew!
The laptop is not under warranty anymore 
... It was bought in 2000..
Seriously? there is nothing i can do when it gets loose? they can't be tightened? Last month i took my laptop to a local shop and they replaced my hinges. Because they cracked.. but on these hinges i do not see any signs of cracking.. there is no way they can be tightened :S ?
Not that we've found. And I've personally been working on Compaqs since '99. Theres a guy here at the shop thats been here since 93 and said he's got no clue how to tighten them. I supposed you could try some kind of a solution that would remove the lubricant. But with that route, if you screw it up, you could end up trashing them again.
That really sucks :s...i guess i'll have to get new hinges yet again..
dont go to compusa, they've ripped me off on more then one occasion, i wasted over 800$ in 2 weeks there repairing my computer multiple times, and i ended up trashing it anyway.
I have a Presario 920, & I had the same problem, & not in warranty anymore, so I just went ahed & opened it, took it almost entirely apart to find out in the end I only needed to remove the cover over the buttons near the hinges. All in all it was a nice spent afternoon, & i got to see the cooling system & had my 2000+ athlon M, in my palm, so if U have the same model it's not really hard, if U could post a picture or something I can see it, or take on of my laptop opened for U to see how to do iT, these things mostly aren't really hard, U just have to take care not to force anything so U won't break nothing.
Anyway good luck with it & if u need help just pm me!
(edit - the hinges are a bit lousy & they tend to get a bit loose, they just need a litlle fastening, if they are startinh to cgrack U can try some imagination also, nothing's unfixable)
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