Acer Aspire E 5 model: Broken hinge problem, AGAIN!!

kimmy97

It is frustrating enough that I went through TWO Acer laptops already and the same problem happened again only within 8 months of use.
Mine is the Acer Aspire E5-575 model with i5-7200 CPU and 8gb ram with 1TB hard drive. It was at a reasonable price with all the functions I needed. As a student, I did not want to drop over 800$ at the time, so this was perfect for me. However, after just a couple months of use, my right side near the adapter plug-in began to crackle everytime the screen was open and closed. This gradually led to the screen assembly itself (cheap plastic) spreading apart and now I have a completely broken hinge that won't allow me to close my laptop without BREAKING the entire screen assembly. As I begin to research this problem I came to find that this was something that has happened to almost every acer laptop no matter the price or type.

As a student, I really do not wish to drop more money on this SECOND laptop which I bought to replace my preivous one that was malfunctioning due to the exact same hinge problem I described. I could not find any local shops around that were able to repair this, so I had to spend more money to buy this new one. I'm extremely upset and disappointed in Acer and their inability to fix this problem. Planned obsolescence, I know. But this is too much. This is clearly a manufacturers defect, and I think ACER is obligated to fix this issue without any cost to the customer. How can the hinge integrity be compromised in such short period of time? I find this perplexing because I have owned other laptops that I have treated very poorly and still functioned better and lasted longer than this.

Ridiculous and feeling torn right now. I hope I can get some help/resolution here.

JackE

Sorry, this is a users forum not reps for arranging ACER warranty repairs. At 8 mos, your machine should still be eligible for ACER warranty repair by going to this link https://www.acer.com/ac/en/CA/content/support . If beyond the warranty period, color-coordinated duct tape can prevent further damage to the hinge connections.  Jack E/NJ

kimmy97

I guess I should have specified: the laptop itself is more than a year old (hence past the warranty period). The hinge problem emerged around 8 months in, but as I was busy with all my school workload and didn't want to go through the hassle again, I just used it the way it was. Total usage to date is probably around 14-15 months. 

Whether I'm covered by warranty or not, this is an evident manufacturer's defect.

Also, don't be telling me to duct-tape my laptop. Are you effing serious? Yeah, might as well use green blue and red duct tape to make it colourful while I'm at it hey? You call that a helpful response, coming from someone with such high reputation in this forum? This just goes to show how ridiculous Acer's after service is, as well as how they respond to problems fundamentally created by them.

JackE

Sorry. Duct tape works. The hinges are relatively cheap if don't like duct tape and you want to handle it yourself or get a shop to do it. Out-of-warranty ACER repairs are also available though pricey. Jack E/NJ

ven98

JackE said:

Sorry. Duct tape works. The hinges are relatively cheap if don't like duct tape and you want to handle it yourself or get a shop to do it. Out-of-warranty ACER repairs are also available though pricey. Jack E/NJ

Apart from duct tape, super glue works well too

I am here to mention that this is a peer to peer community and the users that have the 'ACE' logo next to their nickname are not employees of Acer. We are here to help and give solutions to users that don't require you to send the device to a service centre if possible.

It is true that duct tape is inconvenient, but as mentioned by @JackE you can send the device for an out-of-warranty repair or order the part and do it yourself, but again the duct tape can still be used to prevent any further damage until you decide to get the device repaired.

Manny-Acer_Retired

Hi kimmy97,

I am very sorry to hear that your facing a broken hinge issue with your Acer unit, please let me clarify that the Acer Community (Forum Discussions), were designed as a peer to peer support community, it is not a direct portal to customer service or tech support channels, is not design for direct consultation, case status, complaints etc. Acer employees may read the various topics posted here and you will notice that some Acer moderators may interact with members when appropriate. (case by case basis). But primarily the community is a place where members can exchange their own advice, ideas, articles with knowledge and troubleshooting techniques etc. 

I can certainly understand the frustration, however, I can assure you that a far larger portion of Acer laptops do not have this issue. A lot of research, time and development go into the area around the hinges to minimize issues, but hinges have been failing on clam-shell notebooks for as long as they've been built, and that's not just related to Acer, a quick google search replacing Acer for another manufacture is sure to produce the same results.

 

Unfortunately, the hinge can happen to be a weak point in a folding process that also has to be a hollow enough to allow for wires to pass through and not krinkle them. They take all the stress created when opening the device, but it also has to be capable of moving to allow anyone (think children) to open it. I know we've continued to make improvements and modifications to the way hinges work, but if someone was to come up with a way to prevent hinges from failing the way they've done in the past, they would extremely wealthy.

Now, you have mentioned several points that i want to be able to comment on here:

•  "Acer and their inability to fix this problem" - Have you ever contacted our technical support channel to report the issue? 
•  "This is clearly a manufacturers defect" - You can verify our Acer Warranty terms and conditions, so you can have a better idea on what we cover (90 days software and 1 year hardware) etc.
•  "fix this issue without any cost to the customer" - You have acknowledge that you're in 14 to 15 months usage with this unit and that it is OOW (Out of Warranty), any repair for an OOW unit has a OOW charge (If repairable).    
• How can the hinge integrity be compromised in such short period of time? - This answer was provided in the statement above. 
• "hinge problem emerged around 8 months in, you're reporting this 14-15 months in."  - I understand life events happens and that you've clarified that you were busy with school workload etc. But even if you don't send the unit to repair at that particular moment, it is important taking a few minutes to contact our tech support call center or live chat with an agent to report the issue and see the options you may have or they might be able to offer you to get this resolve when you have more time to handle the case etc, unfortunately we have no control of this decisions here. Our team is always in the best availability and intention to help our customers.

Please keep in mind that we also offer Web Request Repairs

Sorry for any inconveniences that this may cause you,
Acer-Manny 

drkmccy

As an IT pro that has worked 5 years at an HP house, 3 years at a Dell house, and so far 2 years at an Acer house, I can tell you with upmost certainty that Acer's hinges are the GARBAGE. I've seen more broken hinges in 2 years of dealing with approx 500 Acer Travelmates than I ever did when I worked with a combination of HP Elitebooks and Dell Latitudes (over 20,000 laptops in that 7 year span)

JackE

I use a perhaps more statistically significant method of assessing the hinge problem, among other problems, with top laptop mfrs. I individually google the keywords 'broken' 'hinge' & 'the manufacturer' (Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc). Then see how many hits are revealed. Interesting to see who has the lowest hits. 🙂 Then I try to further refine and normalize hits by looking at the ratio of hits per percentage worldwide laptop market share for each mfr. Even more interesting to see who has the lowest ratio.

billsey

I have yet to see an actual broken hinge, but there have been many reports of the hinges pulling loose from the mounts. It's inherent in the design of a thin and light laptop that the case halves are thinner than they used to be. If you aren't careful about opening the case reasonably slowly and from the center, the stress on the mount can cause the screws to loosen and eventually to strip. The official solution (other than training the users to be gentil with their laptop) is to replace the case halves, a more common solution for end users who are out of warranty is to rebuild the screw mounts with epoxy. It means your laptop will be ever so slightly heavier than it used to be, but you can be less careful about opening and closing again. I've seen the same issue with just about every manufacturer, unless they are using a metal case or the model isn't under the thin and light design types.