What are my chances of successfully replacing the hinge on a Thinkpad X60 Tablet?

October 4, 2009 4:15 PM

What are my chances of successfully replacing the hinge on a Thinkpad X60 Tablet?

After two years of ownership I finally got my Thinkpad X60 Tablet working just the way I want it -- and then over the last two weeks the hinge seems to have failed almost completely. Right now it can still support the screen if I position it very delicately, but the slightest jostle causes the screen to crash down to a horizontal position.

I see replacement hinges available e.g. here. I'm reasonably competent at basic mechanical tasks, but haven't ever disassembled a laptop before. The service manual gives an ordered list of 14 components to be removed to access the hinge, but doesn't give any other information. So I have two questions:

1) If I buy a new hinge, do I have a reasonable chance of installing it correctly, just by removing things in the right order, pulling out the old hinge, putting in the new hinge, and then putting everything back?

2) If I do install the new hinge correctly, is it likely to fix my problem?

posted by em to computers & internet (9 comments total)

My data point is not with a Thinkpad, but some other laptop (literally no recollection what kind... it wasn't my computer) -- same problem, replacing the hinge was, like you said, a lot of steps, but we followed directions we found and put in a new hinge, thus completely solving the problem

We managed to find step-by-step instructions with pictures that just some random dude on the internet had put up, though, which helped. Poke around and see if you can find something like this instead of the service manual.
posted by brainmouse at 4:25 PM on October 4, 2009

2) Depends if it's the hinge or the pastic/mount the hinge is attached to.

1) You need the Hardware Maintenance Manual - ThinkPad X60, X60s, X61, X61s from Lenovo. It's the free pdf on that page, and is what the field techs use. It shows you how to open up your Thinkpad without breaking anything (esp. around the display) and how to replace the hinge.
posted by furtive at 4:34 PM on October 4, 2009

2) Depends if it's the hinge or the pastic/mount the hinge is attached to.

Ah. If it's the latter, is there anything I can do?
posted by em at 4:46 PM on October 4, 2009

That symptom does sound like a loose hinge. If the mounts inside were broken, you'd probably get a symptom like the hinge has a lot of free play, but then will move stifly like normal.

I've never replaced a hinge on a tablet before, but yes: lots of tiny little steps, nothing too complicated.

The only pitfall might be making sure you don't cross thread the screws when you put them back in.
posted by gjc at 5:22 PM on October 4, 2009

I've had to tighten the hinge on my X60 4-5 times so far with no ill effects. Just take all of the screws out that you see and then look again. Keep track of where they came from. My problem is that the single screw that keeps the pivot tight keeps coming loose. Otherwise there are 2 screws that keeps the pivot to the housing that may be loose. Good luck and don't break the keyboard ribbon cable.
posted by esemay at 5:33 PM on October 4, 2009

I have a Thinkpad T40 and my hinge also broke. I'm afraid I'm not as handy as you seem to be, so I took it to an authorized IBM repair person, who ended up charging me $150. It's in great shape now, so I guess it's a matter of weighing how your skills vs. a professional job.
posted by quintno at 5:54 PM on October 4, 2009

I've worked on a bunch of Thinkpads... .not the X60, but a lot of older units. They all seem to have very similar hinges. I find the thinkpads easy to disassemble, compared to other laptops, and would not be too concerned about it, but then, I do a lot of fixit stuff.

I'll recommend several things:

Good lighting
Two hours of free time at your best time of day
Decent uncluttered workspace
No pets, spouses, kids, advisors
towel under the unit for scratch prevention
small plastic cups for storage of various screws
labels (yellow stickies OK)
pen (to write on the labels)
digital camera to photograph what it looks like at each stage of disassembly, up close
second adjacent laptop to display take-apart manual obtained online
small flashlight, tweezers, small Phillips and standard screwdrivers (high quality)


Take your time. Read the take apart manual first. Be gentle, particularly around small plastic pieces. Try your best to get the cables to go back in the same routing places they go.

Good luck. It's always scary the first few times.
posted by FauxScot at 7:58 PM on October 4, 2009

Thank you, everyone! You've emboldened me to give this a try, so I've put in an order for the replacement hinge. I'll report back with the results.
posted by em at 7:00 AM on October 5, 2009

Well, it was a partial success. I got the hinge, took the laptop mostly apart, then encountered some extremely tight screws that I couldn't remove with the cheap "precision screwdrivers" I have here. That was disheartening, but at least I was able to put everything back together (in large part due to FauxScot's excellent advice to take photos at every stage of disassembly); so there was no harm done, and it was sort of fun to see what the inside of a laptop looks like.

Of course the hinge was still broken; so I took the laptop and replacement hinge to a local repair shop, where the guy installed it in under 24 hours. Total cost: less than $100.
posted by em at 12:43 PM on November 7, 2009