Lenovo t61p broken hinge

[vmkil]

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p laptop. Machine model is 8891CTO. The hinge on the right-hand side broke.

The hinge on the left-hand side (where the cable is) is till ok. I am not sure what kind of replacement part I need to buy. I looked for the monitors, but what is sold is the screen itself, but not the plastic with hinges around it. I saw that there are hinges to buy but no pictures included, so I am not sure what is included and if would be enough to buy them and if I could replace them myself without any problems. Could anyone, please, help me. THANK YOU

[Harryc]

https://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas/w ... PartNumber

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 68222.html

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 67760.html

[addweight]

I have the exact same laptop and am facing the same issue (and I can post photographs if needed). Thankfully, I have warranty and I hope that it will be fixed free of charge.

However, I am extremely disappointed with the customer service at Lenovo. First of all they denied that this was a real problem saying "only keyboards that dont work etc are covered under warranty". I started complaining and explaining that this was not a user issue. That laptop has never been dropped or anything like that. The hinge failed under normal usage in less than 2 years!!!

If any people at Lenovo are reading this, take this seriously. I am a repeat Thinkpad customer having purchased a T42 in 2004 (I had an issue with the graphics card, but that was MY fault, the laptop works beautifully otherwise and I still use it every day). I purchased this T61 for my wife in December 2007 and the hinge has now fractured under normal usage??? This is unacceptable for the Thinkpad brand, which were supposedly bulletproof machines for so many years.

[sktn77a]

I think you must have stumbled on a particularly unhelpful Tech Support person. When I've encountered this is the past I just hang up and call back - get someone else and they are invariably more helpful.

[addweight]

Just to close out this thread. The IBM (not lenovo) technician came out today and fixed the broken hinge. The broken hinge pieces dont exactly match up and the guy said, this might have been a defect in the original product when it shipped. Anyways, the issue was resolved quite nicely by a very competent person. He was courteous (and honest) enough to notice an additional screw he hand forgotten to put in and once again disassembled the LCD cover to get that in. Kudos for a job well done.

I still must say I am disappointed with the customer service person who took my call. Denying warranty coverage for a broken hinge is ridiculous (It wasnt as if the laptop was dropped and completely fell apart and I am trying to get them to fix the whole thing).

[aiiee]

Mine on my T61p broke too. The left hinge, the wider one. I paid for extended warranty on-site. Repair d00d came out, took 3 hours to replace the hinge, lost a couple screws and caught some wiring under the bezel so it bulged around the blue thinkvantage button. And the hinge was loose again in a week. Wow. Called em back and this time he retightened the hinge, managed to navigate all screws to their respective holes, and relocated the wires so the bulge disappeared, within a half an hour. The hinge is loose again, but not as bad as before. I'm tempted to buy some lock-tite and just fix the [censored] thing correctly myself. We'll see how bad it gets. It's obvious the build and service quality has gotten a lot worse since Lenovo took over. The screens not all that hot either . Pity, the rest of the machine seems pretty good.

[linuxpad]

My right hinge on my T61P (model 8891) also broke after standard day to day usage for several years. It was still under warranty, so I contacted warranty service and explained the problem and they told me to send it in for warranty repair. I was then astounded that they then refused to repair it, calling is a user issue, and wanted $350 to fix the hinge. I argued that it was clearly a manufacturing defect since it was never dropped or mishandled and complained that they would loose a 15 year loyal thinkpad customer. After being bumped up one level, they offered to fix it for $200. Since used 14" T61P sell for about $350 on ebay, Lenovo's initial quoted price for a hinge is clearly highway robbery, and even their negotiated price is absurd for something that is clearly a manufacturing defect that should be covered under warranty. They indicated if I repaired it myself I would loose future warranty coverage on the screen or other parts. At this point they have lost me as a future customer.

If anyone has a suggestion as to how to proceed, it would be appreciated.

[Brad]

Sorry to hear of your trouble.

Your repair should clearly be covered as it has been before for others and myself.

My suggestion is to call and ask to be bumped up again.

Welcome to the forum!

Brad

[linuxpad]

No help from Lenovo on my broken hinge. They claimed I had elevated as far as possible. Even any mention of legal remedies leads to them just sending the machine back unrepaired. I have filed a complaint with my state's attorney general. But I guess I will give up on being a loyal thinkpad linux user for 15 years.

[rssb]

Exact same problem & same cost quoted ( machine type is a 8889 here ), linux pad did you ever find a solution ?

Before failure it had same symptoms as shown in the youtube video below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBUs2_ueX78

My right hinge on my T61P (model 8891) also broke after standard day to day usage for several years. It was still under warranty, so I contacted warranty service and explained the problem and they told me to send it in for warranty repair. I was then astounded that they then refused to repair it, calling is a user issue, and wanted $350 to fix the hinge. I argued that it was clearly a manufacturing defect since it was never dropped or mishandled and complained that they would loose a 15 year loyal thinkpad customer. After being bumped up one level, they offered to fix it for $200. Since used 14" T61P sell for about $350 on ebay, Lenovo's initial quoted price for a hinge is clearly highway robbery, and even their negotiated price is absurd for something that is clearly a manufacturing defect that should be covered under warranty. They indicated if I repaired it myself I would loose future warranty coverage on the screen or other parts. At this point they have lost me as a future customer.

If anyone has a suggestion as to how to proceed, it would be appreciated.

[RealBlackStuff]

With the help of the HMM it;s a matter of less than an hour to fix that problem.
And if you are careful (i.e. don't cause any scratches), your warranty will still remain valid.

[rssb]

Thank you RBS, I am comfortable doing it and have highly qualified technicians who work for our organization who perform POS ( parts only service ) in house daily for other vendor products. Me doing or getting them to help is easy.

Also getting the hinges ( new one ) from Chinese sellers on ebay seems to be lot cheaper than getting it from IBM parts.

Probably the warranty will remain valid as you say, but there is no guarantee that the warranty will cover something else in future or a different type of problem. If it is only me who has a broken hinge arising from a loose hinge problem, I can live with it and say may be its an exception. May be a poll would help to figure out statistically what % of T61 users feel the same way.

My only concern / point of contention is: Warranties are supposed to cover product defects arising from poor design and manufacturing.
I went ahead and paid for the additional warranty when there were no problems with the machine ( one of the reasons to extend my warranty was the bad nvidia chip problem, never know when it would show up !). This way I have peace of mind and not worry about looking up parts etc., I never had hinge failures on any previous models 600E's, T30's, T4X and a (T60p which I am typing on right now).

Again I am using the T61 machine for work, not as a gaming laptop or for something else which would stress or fail components on it. Laptop was never dropped, never lifted it up with one hand, never pulled it from one corner etc. I got an exception to continue to use a thinkpad, when our organization moved to Dell, now to HP. Co workers always like the NMB keyboard, the professional look without the bells and whistles, motion sensor etc. and have influenced many of them to buy thinkpads over time for their home (esp after lenovo took over and prices dropped 1600 --> 1100 ).

Now more and more organizations are moving to apple, even in the professional environment, not sure what type problems they have. But haven't heard many complaints. I was talking to our Cisco sales rep at a party yesterday, he mentioned Cisco now gives it employees a choice between a Thinkpad and Apple. So now it is not 100% Thinkpads like before.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=298735 , this seems to suggest they fix even cosmetic damages for out of warranty machines when it is a known problem. The idea of being able to drop it and getting it repaired in 30 mins is amazing.

I am confident that other T61 ( or other SMB model ) users face / have faced the same loose hinge problem.

My sincere suggestion to fellow TP'ers is if you notice any loose hinge problem is to send it in right away for service. Even if that means sending it every 2 weeks for the same problem over and over again. Looseness of hinge is something many people can live with and probably would, but when it fails you don't want to be stuck like me.

Have been loyal for 8 years because of IBM brand and service. But the same IBM service is messed up now. The way I see it is, it is not Lenovo's fault from a service perspective, Lenovo has the responsibility in the design piece. Unless Lenovo has handed down some internal memo's instructing what to do on service.

Once the call is made it is all IBM employees doing the stuff still and they are the ones dropping the ball here. It is difficult to imagine these are the same IBM employees who worked on service until 2007 or 2008. Either IBM outsourced / sub contracted the work or the good employees moved on. The current IBM employees seem to lack the cognition abilities, to decipher what is right from wrong or the moral character to stand for what is right. Majority of the service mess up's or unsatisfied customers are arising from the service people handling the cases.

If it is Lenovo which passed down such instructions to deal with products then the whole brand is to blame instead of a few rotten apples.

Was on the verge of replacing my T43 with a T420 beginning of next month. It on hold right now because I am not sure what type of support I would get if I face a problem with it 1 year down the line where I cannot return the machine and have no recourse.

With the help of the HMM it;s a matter of less than an hour to fix that problem.
And if you are careful (i.e. don't cause any scratches), your warranty will still remain valid.

[rssb]

There are 2 different FRU's for a T61 hinges 42W3653 ( kato ) and 42W3654 ( reel ). Is one of them prone to more failure than the other.

Thanks