Dell D600 Latitude - Broken hinge. Options?

DaveF

DaveF

DaveF

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My wife has a much loved Dell D600, that our 2 year old has managed to break (during a battle for who gets to watch Thomas the Tank Engine on YouTube!). :(

It was the left hinge that broke, but it seems the load was too much for the right and that is breaking too (it's partly that the top front piece of the keyboard section of the case is coming off).

Does anyone know if this is realistically repairable? I think she'd be prepared to spend £200 for a repair if we felt it was likely to *stay* repaired for a couple of years, but I'm thinking the only way you'd get a long term repair is to completely replace the case.

The money for a new laptop is not a problem, but she really hates to feel something that "still works" is going to get thrown away, so any viable repair options would be considered.

Also, what are the options for recycling the machine? If someone wants the parts I'm sure she'd be happy to donate them to a good home. It's really just the idea of waste that she hates.
 
Check "the bay" for parts, it's not as expensive as you seem to think.
I'm not sure which parts would need replacing as I do not know of the laptop in question, however it will not be too expensive providing you do it yourself - probably <£50.
I see a pair of hinges for £10, is it the metal hinge that's snapped? Or just the plastic surround?
 
The hinges on the D600 are fairly weak, and the internal frame it has on the bottom can break fairly easily too. Getting the parts off Auction Site shouldn't be hard, or replacing the parts, there are service guides available: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/latd600/sm/index.htm
I've had to swap the hinges on a D600 a couple of times now and it's really not hard as long as you keep track of what screw goes where, the thing was practically made to be dismantled.
£200 is a huuuge amount to repair the hinges, the hinges themselves shouldn't cost more than £15 each I think, probably a lot less now that the D600 is rather old. £200 would get you a fairly well specced other D600
 
Hmm... Had a go at repairing my wife's *previous* Dell, and after removing about 50 tiny screws and still nothing would actually come apart I decided it wasn't a job I really wanted to tackle myself. So £200 was basically the labour charge.

But of course if we're at the "well, otherwise I'll get a new laptop" stage I suppose there's not much to lose.

Voodle: I think it's the internal frame (at least) as well. I'll try to post some pics tomorrow.

Meh: Why couldn't you guys have said "it's a no hoper. Get a nice new shiny laptop!" :cool:
 
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