This is the best video yet; your close up of your problem is helpful. My problem is the same issue with the hinge screws to the bottom which have broken out.
The problem is the repair I did on this laptop did not last. The metal threaded inserts pulled out of the epoxy. So the laptop currently sits at the end of my desk with broken hinges and the screen propped up against the shelf behind it, and I just use it to watch youtube while I do real work on my desktop computer. And I got a Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 to use as my main laptop. I've thought about attempting a more radical repair where maybe I glue in a metal plate in the bottom edge of the panel or something to make it stronger, but I haven't decided yet if it is even worth the trouble.
I'm having the same problem (actually mine is worse, the bolts are gone, the place is kinda screwed and the hinge is okay but, there's no way to put it firmly in its actual place) and I have to thank you for you video, that made me believe there's some way to do it. I'll go buy the smallest kind of bolts I can find, I'll try to fill the gaps and stick with glue and I'll see if that works. Epoxy seems like an idea but I'm sure that can't get it to work by itself. Thank you still.
Sorry to hear you have this problem as well. I think owners of these Toshiba laptops fall into two groups. Those that have the hinge problem, and those that bought the laptop and left it open on their desk and never moved it. What I mean by that is every one of these is going to fail unless you never stress the hinges by opening and closing it. The epoxy I used in this video eventually failed again and I ended up buying a new Dell laptop. I have the Toshiba sitting on my desk with broken hinges and the screen propped up by the shelf on my desk. I bought new hinges on eBay to try and repair it again but never got around to doing it since I have a new laptop.
Carl Smith So it won't hold it. I thought about putting actual screws piercing both the hinge and I the cover but it's a bit too bold even for me. It's actually my little brother's computer I'm trying to fix for no charge, and remplacement screen cover and hinges cost way too much, so glue was more or less my only option there. But you're saying it isn't reliable as a solution so I'm clueless... Maybe it would be wiser to transform it into somewhat of a desktop computer, that seems like the best option. I have more or less two weeks to take up this challenge and I don't really know how I'll handle that, I'm trying to see if there's any cheaper method to create fake plastic parts that could be glued and used as supports for my old hinge...
I'm actually seeing this on Toshiba's end, and it shouldn't be that way. From my search I can safely say that every computer has that defect, there should be some sort of free warranty for that. I guess I'll warn my brother to not buy something before reading a dozen of reviews on it.
Reading reviews doesn't hurt, but in my case it wouldn't have alerted me to this problem because these models had not been for sale long enough yet for the problem to become known.
I've had a few ideas for a more durable repair but I haven't got around to trying them yet. One was to scrape out all the ridges and remains of any plastic sticking up where the hinges attach and sand it all nice and smooth, then cut some rectangles of some sort of acrylic plastic sheet of the right thickness and glue them in place and somehow fix the threaded inserts into holes in that plastic. But I suspect the threaded inserts would just pull out again and it's also hard to glue different types of plastic. So another idea I had was to cut a metal bar of the right thickness and glue or epoxy it into the bottom of the panel. Then I could drill and tap threads into holes and screw the hinges to that bar. The threaded inserts can't pull out when they aren't there anymore. But I am not sure I have the metalworking skills to cut and shape a metal bar to fit right. The logical conclusion is that I've already spent way more time trying to fix this thing than it is worth so I should probably just junk it or do like you are thinking and just use it as a desktop system. I've thought about setting it up as some sort of file server to do backups to. Could even put Linux on it and set up something. If you bought a new panel, or just a new back shell to the panel, it's just going to fail again someday since this is a design fault.
I haven't tried it on a computer yet but I do know epoxy often isn't the best for plastic repair even though brute force methods can get it to work. There are many TH-cam videos that show repairs of ABS plastic (which I assume this stuff is) using homemade acetone or MEK solutions and glues. These spirits actually fuse the parts together in a weld that often makes them as strong or even stronger that the original parts. I have some other plastic components where it has worked well Great video and persistence though. This computer is very similar to mine so its a great reference. Thanks.
+flyzone100 Sometimes plastic parts are marked with the type of plastic. I didn't notice if these were marked, but you are likely right that it is ABS. I agree that epoxy is probably not the best but it is what I had, and I wanted something that would be somewhat liquid, which I could fill around the insert nuts and the space around them. I did the first repair attempt, before I made the video, with cheap clear two part epoxy. It hardened more than the JB Weld black epoxy I used in the video, and cracked in pieces when I removed it for the second repair attempt in the video. The JB Weld is a little bit flexible even when cured. I've seen videos of repairs using a mixture of cyanoacrylate glue and baking powder, but I don't know how well that would work. If it breaks again I will either try something other than two part epoxy, or more likely, just buy a new laptop.
+Carl Smith No criticism intended. Just mentioned it for the next project. Looks good and likely to hold. My son used JB Weld on a small crack in an engine block on a tiller several years ago and it;s still holding. It was leaking oil but no more. Now that's amazing stuff.
+flyzone100 No problem. I didn't take it as criticism. I was just explaining why I did it that way. Also I am open to any suggestions for methods that might work better since it would help if I have to do the repair again sometime or if another viewer has to do the repair. I tried JB Weld after I was disappointed in the result with the first clear epoxy. They have several different products. The one I used was "JB Weld KwikWeld" and it says it sets in 6 minutes. I've wondered if the slower setting epoxies would bond to the plastic better. On the other hand slower setting epoxy might have too much time to flow away from the area you want to apply it to.
I'd bet the screws through the lcd were used in an early version of it. Then they discovered that if the lid was closed on an object, or over-extended it cracked the LCD before the standoffs. :) After they discovered it they took out the asandoff so people wouldn't think the screw was accidentally omitted at assembly. They knew there was a problem and added a torque arm on the right hinge. I didn't see what kept them (or you) from adding one to the left.
+David Peterson There was an arm on the left hinge as well. It was broken from the hinge where it bends 90 degrees and attaches to the hinge. I suspect the standoffs failed and the arm was taking all the torque until it broke as well. If I had taken it apart to fix it as soon as the problem developed maybe the arm wouldn't have been broken yet. Reattaching it would help a lot but I didn't see a way to do that with the tools and equipment I have at hand. Watch about the last 15 seconds of part 1 and you can see where I mention that the arm broke off, then in the next cut it is laying on the workbench to the left by the loose wires for the webcam and WiFi antennas.
+Rc Dad So far it's holding up, but with one catch. I published this video in late October, but I actually shot the video of the repair about two months earlier, and just took two months getting around to editing and uploading it. Ironically, about a week after publishing it, the left hinge broke free again. The insert nuts just pulled out of the epoxy. So it only lasted a bit more than two months. I took it all apart, cut out all the epoxy, and did the repair a second time. The left hinge is more of a problem because the long arm that was attached to the hinge broke off, so now the hinge attachment points are subjected to more force than the right side one that still has the arm attached to take some of the torque. One thing I did the second time was to loosen the nut on the pin that goes through the left side hinge so that hinge takes less force to open. The screen still stays up if I don't move around too much, but barely. It's still OK for now. I'm hoping loosening the hinge pin will reduce the stress enough that the repair will hold this time.
+Rc Dad I put that EEVBlog posting on the screen at the end on purpose just to see if anyone would notice. So far you are the first to comment. Which may just mean that you're the only EEVblog viewer to watch my video. :) Notice it is the Batteriser video. Oh, I did fix the touchscreen too. I bought one on eBay. Got the whole touchscreen front panel (not the LCD, just the front plastic panel) and the connecting cable. When I had it apart the first time at some point I was careless and scratched the inside of the touchscreen panel, and now it all looks new again. As long as the hinge continues to hold...
Sorry, I don't know anything about that model and when I searched it online I didn't find enough information to answer the question. I would be skeptical that a touch display could be fitted to a laptop that didn't come with one. The only way I could see that being possible would be if they released a very similar model where that was basically the only difference, which might make it possible the motherboard would have the proper connections for a touchscreen even on units that didn't come with one.
I'm guessing the next round will involve screws clear through the lid....... Only half kidding, you could add external stiffeners with the lid sandwiched between the hinge and the stiffeners. Just have to make them look good and not catch on anything.
+David Peterson I have considered exactly that. If I were to do do that I have to decide, do I make it look nice, like flush countersunk screw heads showing on the outside of the lid, or do I take the exact opposite approach and make it look like some sort of overdone hack to make a point that the thing failed and had to be repaired in a drastic manner. Like a couple big steel plates and bolt heads showing. :)
The gold bits are the threaded inserts that act like nuts except that instead of being six sided they have a grooved pattern on the outside that makes them stick tight in the plastic post on the back screen cover. Problem is that the plastic post breaks off with the threaded insert. You could try to fix it as I did in this video, gluing the inserts back where they belong with a bit of super glue, then filling the surrounding area with epoxy. But it is a time consuming and difficult repair, and it doesn't last. I've done it twice to my Toshiba laptop, and now the hinge itself has broken. So I bought a new laptop recently. There is another way but it will cost a bit. When I did these two repair videos there were no replacement parts available. But now you can go on eBay and buy new hinges and a whole new back LCD panel cover with the threaded gold inserts still in place. But when I last checked they were around $150.00. You would just transfer the LCD panel, webcam, and WiFi antennas over into the new back cover, install new hinges if necessary or use the old ones, and put it all back together. But since the new back panel cover is likely to be no stronger than the original, it will probably just break again eventually. I'm afraid probably the only permanent solution is to buy a new laptop. I got one not made by Toshiba...
Although I understand the need to fast forward of the teardown and rebuild for the purposes of file size upload, those are the very parts of the video I need to teardown the whole assembly. Maybe a part 3 at full length and no fast forwarding?
I didn't really do the fast forwarding to reduce file size upload. I was just trying to keep the videos from turning into an hour long boring video of me removing a bunch of screws. But you are now the second one to comment that you would like to see that part of the video. And I suppose there are probably others thinking the same thing that didn't bother to comment. I guess I can go back and see if I still have the original video of the parts I fast forwarded and see if I can put it together into another decent video. But I probably won't have the time to do that right away. We'll see what I can come up with...
I went through a video that showed a partial teardown of something on my car. Guy skipped over some crucial bolts that I could not find...resulted in a having to take it to a mechanic because I couldn't figure it out. Since then, I fast forward or pause YT videos to get the process instead of the destination. I do appreciate your efforts, video editing yourself at 1/30th of a second frame rate is an onerous chore. And it will get worse at 60 FPS. :(
+Keith Alewine Kind of depends on how you look at it. MacBooks probably won't have this problem. But a MacBook with a 15" screen and similar memory and hard drive space probably costs 3 times what I paid for this Toshiba laptop. Not that it makes this failure OK, but I certainly wouldn't want to pay 3 times as much.
I'm having the same issue now, what a shameful design. No way it's worth fixing even though otherwise I really love this computer. As long as I don't need to close the lid it works fine.
Yeah, when mine broke again a few months ago I managed to get it open but I had to snap the side of the LCD panel back together because the broken hinge didn't want to open and it pulled the LCD apart. But when I got it open and got the panel snapped back together I put it on my desk and I haven't closed it since. I bought a new Dell Inspiron laptop to replace it. I don't understand how the designers at Toshiba thought those small plastic attachment points were sufficient to take the force from the hinges.
This is the best video yet; your close up of your problem is helpful. My problem is the same issue with the hinge screws to the bottom which have broken out.
The problem is the repair I did on this laptop did not last. The metal threaded inserts pulled out of the epoxy. So the laptop currently sits at the end of my desk with broken hinges and the screen propped up against the shelf behind it, and I just use it to watch youtube while I do real work on my desktop computer. And I got a Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 to use as my main laptop. I've thought about attempting a more radical repair where maybe I glue in a metal plate in the bottom edge of the panel or something to make it stronger, but I haven't decided yet if it is even worth the trouble.
I'm having the same problem (actually mine is worse, the bolts are gone, the place is kinda screwed and the hinge is okay but, there's no way to put it firmly in its actual place) and I have to thank you for you video, that made me believe there's some way to do it. I'll go buy the smallest kind of bolts I can find, I'll try to fill the gaps and stick with glue and I'll see if that works. Epoxy seems like an idea but I'm sure that can't get it to work by itself.
Thank you still.
Sorry to hear you have this problem as well. I think owners of these Toshiba laptops fall into two groups. Those that have the hinge problem, and those that bought the laptop and left it open on their desk and never moved it. What I mean by that is every one of these is going to fail unless you never stress the hinges by opening and closing it. The epoxy I used in this video eventually failed again and I ended up buying a new Dell laptop. I have the Toshiba sitting on my desk with broken hinges and the screen propped up by the shelf on my desk. I bought new hinges on eBay to try and repair it again but never got around to doing it since I have a new laptop.
Carl Smith So it won't hold it. I thought about putting actual screws piercing both the hinge and I the cover but it's a bit too bold even for me. It's actually my little brother's computer I'm trying to fix for no charge, and remplacement screen cover and hinges cost way too much, so glue was more or less my only option there. But you're saying it isn't reliable as a solution so I'm clueless... Maybe it would be wiser to transform it into somewhat of a desktop computer, that seems like the best option.
I have more or less two weeks to take up this challenge and I don't really know how I'll handle that, I'm trying to see if there's any cheaper method to create fake plastic parts that could be glued and used as supports for my old hinge...
I'm actually seeing this on Toshiba's end, and it shouldn't be that way. From my search I can safely say that every computer has that defect, there should be some sort of free warranty for that. I guess I'll warn my brother to not buy something before reading a dozen of reviews on it.
Reading reviews doesn't hurt, but in my case it wouldn't have alerted me to this problem because these models had not been for sale long enough yet for the problem to become known.
I've had a few ideas for a more durable repair but I haven't got around to trying them yet. One was to scrape out all the ridges and remains of any plastic sticking up where the hinges attach and sand it all nice and smooth, then cut some rectangles of some sort of acrylic plastic sheet of the right thickness and glue them in place and somehow fix the threaded inserts into holes in that plastic. But I suspect the threaded inserts would just pull out again and it's also hard to glue different types of plastic. So another idea I had was to cut a metal bar of the right thickness and glue or epoxy it into the bottom of the panel. Then I could drill and tap threads into holes and screw the hinges to that bar. The threaded inserts can't pull out when they aren't there anymore. But I am not sure I have the metalworking skills to cut and shape a metal bar to fit right. The logical conclusion is that I've already spent way more time trying to fix this thing than it is worth so I should probably just junk it or do like you are thinking and just use it as a desktop system. I've thought about setting it up as some sort of file server to do backups to. Could even put Linux on it and set up something. If you bought a new panel, or just a new back shell to the panel, it's just going to fail again someday since this is a design fault.
Thanks for the video! By any chance, would you know what are the dimensions of the big head's screws holding the hinges?
Sorry, I do not know the size of those screws. All I remember is that they were very small. :) Well, compared to screws in other equipment.
@@cdsmith No problem :)
I haven't tried it on a computer yet but I do know epoxy often isn't the best for plastic repair even though brute force methods can get it to work. There are many TH-cam videos that show repairs of ABS plastic (which I assume this stuff is) using homemade acetone or MEK solutions and glues. These spirits actually fuse the parts together in a weld that often makes them as strong or even stronger that the original parts. I have some other plastic components where it has worked well Great video and persistence though. This computer is very similar to mine so its a great reference. Thanks.
+flyzone100 Sometimes plastic parts are marked with the type of plastic. I didn't notice if these were marked, but you are likely right that it is ABS. I agree that epoxy is probably not the best but it is what I had, and I wanted something that would be somewhat liquid, which I could fill around the insert nuts and the space around them. I did the first repair attempt, before I made the video, with cheap clear two part epoxy. It hardened more than the JB Weld black epoxy I used in the video, and cracked in pieces when I removed it for the second repair attempt in the video. The JB Weld is a little bit flexible even when cured. I've seen videos of repairs using a mixture of cyanoacrylate glue and baking powder, but I don't know how well that would work. If it breaks again I will either try something other than two part epoxy, or more likely, just buy a new laptop.
+Carl Smith No criticism intended. Just mentioned it for the next project. Looks good and likely to hold. My son used JB Weld on a small crack in an engine block on a tiller several years ago and it;s still holding. It was leaking oil but no more. Now that's amazing stuff.
+flyzone100 No problem. I didn't take it as criticism. I was just explaining why I did it that way. Also I am open to any suggestions for methods that might work better since it would help if I have to do the repair again sometime or if another viewer has to do the repair.
I tried JB Weld after I was disappointed in the result with the first clear epoxy. They have several different products. The one I used was "JB Weld KwikWeld" and it says it sets in 6 minutes. I've wondered if the slower setting epoxies would bond to the plastic better. On the other hand slower setting epoxy might have too much time to flow away from the area you want to apply it to.
I'd bet the screws through the lcd were used in an early version of it. Then they discovered that if the lid was closed on an object, or over-extended it cracked the LCD before the standoffs. :) After they discovered it they took out the asandoff so people wouldn't think the screw was accidentally omitted at assembly. They knew there was a problem and added a torque arm on the right hinge. I didn't see what kept them (or you) from adding one to the left.
+David Peterson There was an arm on the left hinge as well. It was broken from the hinge where it bends 90 degrees and attaches to the hinge. I suspect the standoffs failed and the arm was taking all the torque until it broke as well. If I had taken it apart to fix it as soon as the problem developed maybe the arm wouldn't have been broken yet. Reattaching it would help a lot but I didn't see a way to do that with the tools and equipment I have at hand. Watch about the last 15 seconds of part 1 and you can see where I mention that the arm broke off, then in the next cut it is laying on the workbench to the left by the loose wires for the webcam and WiFi antennas.
If you wondering how I fixed it, check it out on my channel.
did that fix hold up long term? eevblog! Yeah!
+Rc Dad So far it's holding up, but with one catch. I published this video in late October, but I actually shot the video of the repair about two months earlier, and just took two months getting around to editing and uploading it. Ironically, about a week after publishing it, the left hinge broke free again. The insert nuts just pulled out of the epoxy. So it only lasted a bit more than two months. I took it all apart, cut out all the epoxy, and did the repair a second time. The left hinge is more of a problem because the long arm that was attached to the hinge broke off, so now the hinge attachment points are subjected to more force than the right side one that still has the arm attached to take some of the torque. One thing I did the second time was to loosen the nut on the pin that goes through the left side hinge so that hinge takes less force to open. The screen still stays up if I don't move around too much, but barely. It's still OK for now. I'm hoping loosening the hinge pin will reduce the stress enough that the repair will hold this time.
+Rc Dad I put that EEVBlog posting on the screen at the end on purpose just to see if anyone would notice. So far you are the first to comment. Which may just mean that you're the only EEVblog viewer to watch my video. :) Notice it is the Batteriser video. Oh, I did fix the touchscreen too. I bought one on eBay. Got the whole touchscreen front panel (not the LCD, just the front plastic panel) and the connecting cable. When I had it apart the first time at some point I was careless and scratched the inside of the touchscreen panel, and now it all looks new again. As long as the hinge continues to hold...
+Carl Smith thanks for the update. I might go mad scientist on it and just put the Frankenstein bolts through it.
+Rc Dad No problem. If you do the Frankenstein bolts post a picture or video of it somewhere, if you can. I'd like to see the result.
Hi, please is it possible to buy a touch display and fix it onto l50d-b?
Sorry, I don't know anything about that model and when I searched it online I didn't find enough information to answer the question. I would be skeptical that a touch display could be fitted to a laptop that didn't come with one. The only way I could see that being possible would be if they released a very similar model where that was basically the only difference, which might make it possible the motherboard would have the proper connections for a touchscreen even on units that didn't come with one.
I'm guessing the next round will involve screws clear through the lid....... Only half kidding, you could add external stiffeners with the lid sandwiched between the hinge and the stiffeners. Just have to make them look good and not catch on anything.
+David Peterson I have considered exactly that. If I were to do do that I have to decide, do I make it look nice, like flush countersunk screw heads showing on the outside of the lid, or do I take the exact opposite approach and make it look like some sort of overdone hack to make a point that the thing failed and had to be repaired in a drastic manner. Like a couple big steel plates and bolt heads showing. :)
hey carl so the gold bits that the screws go into on my laptop are snapped off how do i fix this...
The gold bits are the threaded inserts that act like nuts except that instead of being six sided they have a grooved pattern on the outside that makes them stick tight in the plastic post on the back screen cover. Problem is that the plastic post breaks off with the threaded insert. You could try to fix it as I did in this video, gluing the inserts back where they belong with a bit of super glue, then filling the surrounding area with epoxy. But it is a time consuming and difficult repair, and it doesn't last. I've done it twice to my Toshiba laptop, and now the hinge itself has broken. So I bought a new laptop recently. There is another way but it will cost a bit. When I did these two repair videos there were no replacement parts available. But now you can go on eBay and buy new hinges and a whole new back LCD panel cover with the threaded gold inserts still in place. But when I last checked they were around $150.00. You would just transfer the LCD panel, webcam, and WiFi antennas over into the new back cover, install new hinges if necessary or use the old ones, and put it all back together. But since the new back panel cover is likely to be no stronger than the original, it will probably just break again eventually. I'm afraid probably the only permanent solution is to buy a new laptop. I got one not made by Toshiba...
Thanks i should of done some research before i brought thank you
Although I understand the need to fast forward of the teardown and rebuild for the purposes of file size upload, those are the very parts of the video I need to teardown the whole assembly. Maybe a part 3 at full length and no fast forwarding?
I didn't really do the fast forwarding to reduce file size upload. I was just trying to keep the videos from turning into an hour long boring video of me removing a bunch of screws. But you are now the second one to comment that you would like to see that part of the video. And I suppose there are probably others thinking the same thing that didn't bother to comment. I guess I can go back and see if I still have the original video of the parts I fast forwarded and see if I can put it together into another decent video. But I probably won't have the time to do that right away. We'll see what I can come up with...
I went through a video that showed a partial teardown of something on my car. Guy skipped over some crucial bolts that I could not find...resulted in a having to take it to a mechanic because I couldn't figure it out. Since then, I fast forward or pause YT videos to get the process instead of the destination. I do appreciate your efforts, video editing yourself at 1/30th of a second frame rate is an onerous chore. And it will get worse at 60 FPS. :(
Same problem here. Craptastic! My Mac friends just laugh and shake their heads.
+Keith Alewine Kind of depends on how you look at it. MacBooks probably won't have this problem. But a MacBook with a 15" screen and similar memory and hard drive space probably costs 3 times what I paid for this Toshiba laptop. Not that it makes this failure OK, but I certainly wouldn't want to pay 3 times as much.
toshiba laptop hinge repair in Kolkata? where should i go ?
try this, i'm sure it would help
techyuga.com/laptop-hinge-repair/
thanx
I'm having the same issue now, what a shameful design. No way it's worth fixing even though otherwise I really love this computer. As long as I don't need to close the lid it works fine.
Yeah, when mine broke again a few months ago I managed to get it open but I had to snap the side of the LCD panel back together because the broken hinge didn't want to open and it pulled the LCD apart. But when I got it open and got the panel snapped back together I put it on my desk and I haven't closed it since. I bought a new Dell Inspiron laptop to replace it. I don't understand how the designers at Toshiba thought those small plastic attachment points were sufficient to take the force from the hinges.