Acer 1080 how common are hinge problems?

MrsT

I bought an Acer 1080 laptop December 2020 from John Lewis, supposedly with a 2 year guarantee. April this year the left hinge went. John Lewis have been shocking, and said it must be damage which it most certainly is not. Never taken anywhere, never dropped, only used in the home, cover is pristine. So, my question is - how common is it to have hinge problems with Acer Laptops? For no reason apart from normal use? Please let me know your experience, good or bad. At the moment I most certainly will not recommend either Acer or John Lewis, but I would like to know if I'm just unlucky or if this is a known fault with Acer laptops. 

billsey

Thin and light laptops in general, not just Acer, show hinge issues on occasion, usually when the user has been opening the laptop from the corners instead of the middle. The plastic cases have less depth to hold the mounting screws than older designs that aren't as thin and opening from the corner tends to flex the case. There is no real good solution other than to be careful how you stress the laptop case as you open it. Repair is typically not too bad, you build the screw mounts back up with epoxy, then reseat the screws in the repaired mounts. You can also, in some models, alleviate the issue some by loosening the hinges themselves. In those cases the hinge pivot is a screw/nut and you can loosen the nut slightly, pinning it in place with Loctite. That allows the laptop to open and close easier though so you have to be aware that it might close too easily.

Puraw

Hi@billsey
I have to disagree with your suggestion to use Loctite and Epoxy for maintaining latest thin laptops. I have a 3-year old a515-54G and the bottom cover has 11 (eleven) screws of which 4 (four) no longer function (nuts with plastic housing came out during a maintenance job in an Acer Service center in 2020). The left hinge footing came also out after 3 years and had to be glued onto the MOBO as the entire laptop had to be dissasembled to replace the nuts: Anyway when nuts and plastic housing are broken it is impossible to glue new nuts that will line up exactly with the holes of the cover, I tried that and done that (failed). Bottom line, I love my a15-54G laptop, best laptop I ever had, but the very thin fragile plastic case leaves a lot to be desired for. I also bought (e-bay) a new bottom cover as the old cover did not close (snap) properly anymore (lots of little plastic snap-ons were broken). When you never open the laptop case some of this may be avoided but how to increase the standard 4GB RAM modules (W11 uses 4.3GB) and replace an old battery without opening the bottom cover of the a515-54G? Dell and many other laptops have a complete metal case like the top lid (with the screen) of the a515-54G and albeit these laptops are far more expensive this is the way to go for these ultra thin laptops.