Thinkpads Forum

I bought two old thinkpad 350's that have a serious problem. The hinges are so stiff that they crack the case to the point that one of the screens actually broke off of the bottom of one of them.

The second one only has a small crack right now, but with my experience with the first one, I'd like to know what to do to fix it.

I've got a 390E that had a similar problem with both hinges (one when I bought it).

I can tell you that when the stress cracks became too great to the point where the hinge began to actually disintegrate - I dug out as much of the pieces around the hinge joint as possible, mixed up some two-part epoxy and let it get to a point where it was almost "set", and then I poured it into the joint - and let it set-up completely for 24 hours. In the nearly 4 years I've had the laptop, I've only had to re-repair the hinge once. Now the other hinge is also failing, so I'm getting ready to repair it also.

The trick to keeping the epoxy from getting out-of-control, is to allow it to nearly set up. That keeps it from flowing and getting into other areas where you don't want it to go. Some risk? Sure, but not if you're careful and take precautions.