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Old Laptop fractures/cracks question
Posted: 2007-03-30 08:20pm
by Pu-239
My T22 has been getting hairline fractures all over the place that grow, requiring constant disassembly and epoxying- is this a common thing w/ old laptops w/ plastic cases? It's happened to a Latitude C series and a Tecra that I've owned. I've heard that plastic ages and becomes brittle over time....
Posted: 2007-03-31 01:21am
by RThurmont
The oldest laptop in my fleet dates from late 2003/early 2004 (probably about the same age as a T22) and is a Dell Inspiron. There are no fractures anywhere on the laptop that I am aware of. The only laptop of mine that has anything close to fractures on it is a Toshiba Satellite R5 tablet PC I have that has a number of scratches on the bezel, but nothing that would require epoxy.
In addition, I know of a lot of people using geniunely ancient laptops who have had a lot of problems, but not fractures, so I'm not exactly sure what's causing your T22's problem. Was it ever exposed to extreme temperatures or humidity, or was it ever dropped, or exposed to liquids?
Posted: 2007-03-31 02:29am
by FedRebel
My Presario 700 has cracks in the plastic at the hinges, It seems that the plastic is cheap and after years of opening and closing it wears out.
Posted: 2007-03-31 04:48am
by Pu-239
The T22 has a Win98/2000 sticker, so it's probably from before 2001
It's been shoved off of a table once (inside a bag, but still enough to severely damage the case on the corner, but cracks already started developing beforehand on the LCD bezel. The plastic just feels rather brittle.
Posted: 2007-03-31 07:40am
by Vendetta
FedRebel wrote:My Presario 700 has cracks in the plastic at the hinges, It seems that the plastic is cheap and after years of opening and closing it wears out.
This is an extremely common problem with laptops. Stiff hinges attached to plastics inevitably lead to stress fractures.
Posted: 2007-03-31 05:49pm
by Pu-239
Well, on the T22 the hinges are connected to metal strips that are attached to the plastic case, so a fracture isn't really a concern around the hinges, unlike the latitude I've had.
Problem is I've had the LCD bezel break, little tabs about 2mm in height holding the drive bay clip shear off, (which shouldn't happen since it's internal), the plastic strip screwed on over the keyboard bezel crack, etc - ie places that aren't exposed to the outside).
Of course, this thing is used and I don't know it's history.... perhaps it's time for a new one... (I just spent 250$ on this last year though D: )