MSI planned obsolescence Hinges

Hi guys, I'm really disapointed today, seriously. When i read comments on MSI laptop fragile hinges, i thought they were falses, but i was wrong. I bought my laptop in end november 2018. It's not my 1st laptop in my life, (i'm old) but was the 1st one from MSI. I chose this MSI GE 73 8RF for the design, the cooling, and the specs. I did wait for a good discount and bought it for the black friday in 2018 but was expensive even the discount, just my point of view...

i take care of my laptop as for many hardware i got, still got an iphone 4 working with no scrach on it, still shine as the 1st day (use it sometimes as an ''ipod" or saves usb....). I took lot of times, care, patient to tweak my windows, my cpu and it still working fine.

But yesterday, i receive an ssd for an upgrade and as usual, i open my laptop carefully, with my screwdriver and my nail to removes "tabs" or "clips" (sry englsih not my native language). When i pass my finger nail all around to open the tabs, i saw this :



There's one screw, the one on my pictures, who's not attach or tight, because the "tiny gold bolt" is not fixed at all, the smalll piece a red plastic, falls down in my hand literally, when i saw the damage...

How is it possible, i had never hitting the laptop on something, never move around, outside or carry it out of my home. The body covering this red plastic part is clean, no scratch and the plastic covering the hinges on the screen is clean too and placed just above. Those two parts "surrounded" the broken part. There's literally no space between for something to scrath or hit it like it is right now.... I am SERIOUSLY disapointed.

Imagine pushing a door with a finger pushing near the hinges and not pushing near the door handle. Those Hindges are so short hindges, they cover all the weight and even i take care of my laptop, open the latop with 2 hands, in the middle , everytime, the plastic breaks..... I'm really upset. The warranty in my country is 2 years but i'm scared that my pc come back half repaired or getting else damages. I don't konw how is the support in my country and specially from MSI (France).

 

Sorry to see you having such experience. Wear and tear can cause the hinges to fail, please note that it's better to open the screen from the center of lid instead of any corner (left or right) in order to distribute the force evenly.
Finally, please contact MSI to have this issue resolved and they will cover the repair under warranty.

 

Hi Kevin, I'm 48 years old, i take care of my stuff, and i have all time, open it with the middle body and 2 hands.

There's too much people complain on it, i couldn't believe it, thought i was a industry mechanic to destroy competitor, but it happends to me, i'm so upset and i still don't believe or understand why this is happends
I was editing my post, when you answer me, i explain more what i'm living right now....

Seriously, after 1 year, and 4 month, it CAN'T be as you said "Wear and tear". For my point of view, i call it "planned obsolescence" because this problem is not new, just check on the net.....How can MSI Ingenears can build good cooling solution, with several heat pipes, and the hindges tyni, carry the weight.

I still got my hp dv7 bought 10 years ago and still working fine, only the "silver color on deck", plastic, moved on, hindges are still working well. So please, don't get me wrong, with all my respect "Kevin", even we don't know each other : ) we are in 2020, we got the minds, the solution, the creativity to brings to the customers the good stuff, as we said here in france, we got the " savoir faire" ( google trad "the know how") A good stuff , you keep it in mind, and come back later.....
I still love my laptop, because it working great (with all my tweaks i had done on it, throttlestop.....) because out of the box was getting 94 on CoD, but this tiny plastic, broken, makes this product, but i repeat the design, the specs lose all its added value, just about those hindges.

 

Hello, it's difficult to say if it's just particular batches with this issue but clearly the unit you have might had a quality issue. Please note that when there are issues then they will get the most hits on the net. No news is good news is what many companies would have hoped for.
Hinge problems existed for many years with every brand, so if you google for hinge problems the first brand that came up on the result is actually HP. So, you will be able to find a ton of posts on every problem out there on other issues as well.
Don't feel bad as MSI needs to take care of you. We are here to provide support to users who need assistance as well as providing directions on what you can do. Please feel free to let us if you have any other concerns that you would like us to address.

 

I can understand about those negative post on the net, but i'm not here to make another or more this way. I'm just telling the facts and i'm upset cause i wanna believe i got the right laptop i was looking for. I just feeel sad, and disapointed. Not here to say this trademark is better then the others, when i said still got my hp working.... I didn't bought another HP, wanted something different and better when i bought this msi, was looking for it for a long moment to catch it at a good price.

But i'm sure MSI are aware of it and they needs to improve it if they care their customers.... They need to brings taller hindge, upper at least 50% tall of the screen size, same for the body to cover more weight, then the original we have on all msi laptop.

Will catch monday MSI to get some info for my repair, the more i wait,the more damage will get...

 

I tried yesterday night, to complete the RMA, but got a "Server error "/" in Application" + lots of code lines" at the end when i was about to confirm....
Another pic :

 

@Avé César you can try [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected]
The first address replied in French when I asked for the Spectre Meltdown bios update for my old GT72. Although it took them 2 months to reply, at least they replied...
For your issue I'm sure it will be faster.

I hope the SAV (after sale service) improved because the time I had to deal with them it was substandard (French one).
If you bought the laptop in France, the legal standard warranty is 2 years, but it has to be managed with the seller and not the manufacturer. If you had 2 years manufacturer warranty (not always the case), then it's MSI directly who has to deal with it.
In any case, contact both the seller and MSI because they usually try to reject the issue on the other...

 

Thx for your info @tiliarou .
I had read on the net, that MSI stipulates the plastics are cosmetic and are not include in the garantie and if Hindges are still attached, they don't include it on a repair.... is that true @Kevin@GenTechPC ?

( If it's true, the plastic broken on my laptop is the part of the hindges, so ?! )

 

The part broke because the hinge broke so they usually have to replace the chassis including the hinge so all of it are within warranty coverage, unless the hinge was dropped to the floor and cracked then that would be a different case.

 

RMA done in 4 days (because i leave not far from the support center)
It was fast, clean repair and well packed up. They changed all the deck, apply new thermal paste (but had to remove it, cause i open it to doing myself, didn't think they would apply a new one) had to open the pc too put my hdd and 2nd SSD.

The keyboard feels a bit strange, maybe because is new too, need press a bit harder.The space bar is not the same too, less responsive on sides... but overall it's fine. Hope my hinges will stand in period.

(I unscrew, give a little slack on the bolt of hinges both sides, before i send to repair...)

Last point, did an image back up , removed throttlestop, the task too, and clean Bios mod before sending,don't know if it can be a "avoid warranty too", before sending for the RMA....

 

More than planned obsolescence, its the cost of saving money in the chasis. Some models experience it and then you see how they improve on it later on. We had an infamous case of hinge failing back in the GT60/GT70 era due to bad design, that was eventually corrected.

But as long as plastic is used to support/hold anything screwed in, there will be chances of breaking. Particularly in super thin laptops.

 

Is there another way, or a different material than the plastic already used on laptops to hold hinges ? Maybe the plastic on my msi is to thin and attaches to the mother board.

On my hp,the plastic seems a little thicker, never had a trouble with hinges ( DV7 1035ef ).

 

The best alternative is that the main bodies connected with hinges, and the hinge itself to be of stronger materials like metals, or at worst, thick plastic. The rest of the machine can use thin aluminum or whatever they want. But the main frame to be strong.

The hinge cover itself can be of plastic, that's fine.