5920 - crack near hinge; need opinions

Good morning!
Our Acer 5920 is less than a year old, but not by much so I gotta make a decision soon. I'm hoping to get some help from you folks.

There's a little crack in the frame surrounding the LCD screen. I attached an image. This laptop has seen very limited use. I use a strong, well padded case when transporting.

I called Acer. A gal said I can send it to them, they'll make a determination whether it's covered or not, if not they'll call me and tell me how much it'd cost to fix, etc. I'm not thrilled about sending it to Temple, Texas. Besides, what are the chances Acer will do the right thing and fix it?

Has anyone seen this kind of damage?
Anyone have an idea whether it's mostly cosmetic? I'm assuming the plastic shell doesn't actually do much, and that there's a metal hinge underneath that does most of the real work, but I can't tell for sure and have never taken apart a laptop.

Thanks!

 

Don't assume too much. Hinge cracks are pretty common on laptops, ranging from minor issues to major ones.

Generally, they are stress cracks -- opening and closing the lid places tension on the bezel. It's difficult to say if this will cause future issues or not because we cannot see how the screen is attached to the body. Is there a metal frame and the bezel is attached to it or is the hing attached directly to the plastic bezel? Without opening it we cannot guess.

I would take apart the bezel (you should have screws mounted beneath those little nubs) and take a look at the bezel frame. I would probably take a little dab of epoxy to the back side of the crack to precent it from spreading further, but I doubt I would send it back

 

I started to pry up on one of those little nubs and could see something sort of peeling away - didn't know if it was a little dab of contact cement that holds those nubs on or what so I stopped. You think it's OK to peel those little nubs off to get at the screws underneath?

 

You should have no problems peeling them off, it's just glue, keep them safe and the will be able to put them back on.

Also, sounds like your gonna take the screen assembly apart, so here's a link to the 5920 service manual, guide and instructions on that sort of thing:

Edited by ATG, reason: not allowed

 

thanks, bangert -
I didn't know there was a place to find a digital Acer Service Manual! I'm on dial-up at home so will snag that next time I've got a wifi connect with lappy.
I tried to peek under the hood, but after I got the screws out found the plastic bezel has teeth every few inches that grip the back side of the lid very tightly. Was afraid to pry on them and make matters worse.
With the screws out I was at least able to poke around near the hinge, lifting the bezel back a bit. It does appear that the plastic bezel, the part that has the crack, only covers the real hinge.
As of this morning I'm leaning towards living with it. Dangit. I was so proud of my first laptop! Kind of like finding that first big scratch on a new car...