Reports of GT70 series notebook top-lid hinge seizing....

Perfectly fine but involving our service team initially is usually better route so they at least know what's going on and can help get things done faster for you.

 

Hey Superbee,

Although our Service team here at MSI is top notch, going through Xotic first might give you a faster return time. Let me know if you have any issues with your RMA and i will check it out for you :thumbsup:

Cheers!
Geno

 

It's nothing wrong with MSI's team, there are just established lines of comms between resellers and the manufacturers put in place to speed up information and testing.

 

I can understand your logic, however it makes no sense to me to send it off to Nebraska, then as to drive over to City of Industry and drop it off at MSi's HQ. I previously did this after receiving RMA with my optical drive last year. Hoping that it will not take too long to repair as I use this laptop mostly for business rather than for gaming.

 

Doesn't necessarily mean you need to get it to us first, just gets our service team working on the RMA with you instead of going at it by yourself. It's always best to get us involved as opposed to not because we as a company pull a lot more weight than you as an individual.

 

Add my GT70 to the list of the affected. My left hinge seemed to explode last night, and it looks exactly like all of the pictures posted throughout the thread..

I still have 8 months of warranty left, so we'll see what happens when I contact MSI.

 

Sad to hear that Kevin. I hope you get things sorted out and your machine repaired quickly

 

That sucks, hopefully MSI takes care of you to like new condition.

 

Contact Geno at MSi. He'll set things right with you as he did with me! Good luck! :thumbsup:

 

Your lucky that it happened while still covered by warranty.

My GT780DX left side hinge broke away from the cover about a month after my warranty expired.

An MSI design defect that owners pay for.

 

Thanks for the advice. I just sent Geno a message.

That's been the story for every gaming laptop I've owned. Fortunately the GT70 came with 2 years of coverage.

 

My mother's HP laptop has done the same thing so it's not just confined to MSi.

How did that all go for you?

 

Hey guys, so how i can avoid this problem in future? I bought used GT70, I'm afraid it can happen any time. So I could relube hinges and get them a bit looser?

 

The problem occurs on the left side by the exhaust fan so heat is most likely involved in the cause.

Keeping the hinges lubed is a good idea but probably won't prevent the issue.Don't use any lube that contains a solvent like WD40.

A synthetic light gun grease/oil might be good?

IMO,the problem is the type of plastic that was used making the top cover and the amount of solid plastic holding the metal inserts that the screws go into to hold the hinge to the cover.

 

This exact thing happened to my last night. My GT70 is 3 years old. I keep the laptop on my desk all the time and use it mostly as a desktop replacement. I heard some cracking sound when I closed the lid and little plastic pieces were found around the left side (where the heat sink is). It took me a little while to figure that this is actually the hinge that is seized and when the lid is closed, the hinge is not rotating but rather sizes and splits the top lid cover braking it. With great hope I called MSi support today (I am in Canada). To my great disappointment, they refused to accept that this is a manufacturer defect and only offered to repair it at my cost. Even after telling them that there are others who has this same issue and speaking to a manager, the result is the same. This is very disappointing. I was expecting quality from MSi after spending a lot of money and they clearly wouldn't stand behind their products.

 

Mine just happened yesterday as I am travelling in Hong Kong. I didn't even know this is a continuing problem with the GT70. Had it for 3 years so warranty is long gone. All 4 screw attachments broker off the plastic case and I cannot close the lid. I opened the screen casing and took the hinge out and it is super stiff. Hopefully someone here can order the case quickly as I am here for only one more week. Waiting to here from this outfit call Hong Kong Computer Repair Service Centre to see if they can do it. It not will have to wait till I get back to Canada. Does anyone know where to order the screen case in Canada?

 

MSI has a branch in Canada. I'd go through the MSI Canada support page.

 

I couldn't find a place to order this in Canada. Ordered the hinges, and the lid online (from China - AliExpress), waited about a month to be delivered. They were not cheap mind you. Yesterday night, I finally replaced the lid and the hinges. It's not too difficult to do. Just need to be careful in general. It took me just under 2 hours to get it done. There are couple of videos on YouTube that describes gt70 dis-assembly and screen replacement for you the get an idea of how it can be done.

 

All you need is in this thread that I posted.

 

Yes. Very detailed instructions of course. You really took your time outlining everything. Thank you.

 

I ended up having the hinge mount on the lid repaired in HK. They use some sort of PVC material and glue a new mount around all the broken off plastic attachments. The hinge is sitting a little bit high as they need to have enough material to encase the screw's bolt. It is not cheap end up being HK 930 which equates to about C$165. It included taking apart the hinge itself to service and lubricated it. They told me not to disassemble the lid anymore as it could break again. I had no choice as they don't have any part and not sure how long it would take to order. They think it will be over HK 1,000 anyway just for the lid.

Which one did you go for? I see on your link for China AliExpress the cheapest one is listed at US $60. Now that I am back in Canada, just wondering if I should order one as a spare.

thanks

 

I had the same problem on my MSI GT70 - near the right hinge the bezel started flexing away from the lid.

Took the screen apart and used medium CA glue (Vitalbond) along with activator spray to glue the brass screw threads back into the lid. I used a ton of CA glue to re-inforce the brass threads. Three of them had broken out of the plastic lid on the right and one had broken on the left.

BTW the activator spray causes the CA glue to harden instantly, so you can build up a good amount of glue around the brass threads, hit it with the spray and then apply more glue until you have sufficient.

After that I slightly loosened the laptop hinge nuts to make the hinge less stiff.

I think i was lucky to catch mine before it totally failed.

Hopefully MSI will address this problem in future models as the plastic re-inforcement around the brass thread inserts is woefully weak!

 

MSI will take care of this issue if the system is still under warranty.
Also, it's recommended to open the lid from the center to prolong the life of hinges because if you open from the corner the force is concentrated on one side instead of distributed to both.

 

Right, so the hinge started seizing about a year ago, but the laptop was already out of warranty, thus I never bothered doing anything about it, hoping it wouldn't get worse. However, now it's holding onto its last strand of hair. The lid is loose as all hell and I'm afraid that if I close it one more time (Which I hope I don't have to do. I haven't closed the lid for months because of this) it will just fall apart.

Now I reckon I can't get much done without sending it out to someone for repairs. Which I can't, because work and this is my only machine that I have.

Obviously then the alternative is to order the parts and try to repair it myself. Is the repair hard in particular?

Here's the damage (It's also giving away on the other end, only not quite as bad):

 

There are some videos on youtube that show the tear down of the system, so you could decide for your self if you would like to try it. This one here shows the lid being taken apart and removed completely, for example.

 

You and I are in the same boat. My right hinge gave way a few days. Finding this thread really upsets me. I hardly used this laptop since I bought it and to have such a catastrophic failure on a 3 year old machine is unacceptable.

I decided im not going to toss the laptop so I went ahead and bought 2 new hinges and a new top cover, to fix it.

 

Just happened with my GT72

Will update with pic and stuff later.

FFS.

 

No cause for panic? Lol. I must agree with everyone else who is not pleased, because I paid $3,000 for mine with the warranty. The laptop operates fine, but the hinges broke and my screen constantly cuts off because there is a short in the wires due to the broken hinges. This is far from what I expected as far as the quality of the shell is concerned. I am also a student, so paying a few thousand dollars for a laptop that needs to either be shipped to Canada, or having to pay for a replacement shell myself is not ideal. I thought this may have been an isolated incident, but now that I see how many people have had the same issue, I will not spend my money on MSI laptops anymore.