The hot glue gun fix for a broken laptop hinge that everyone hates on actually works

I was at my kitchen table in Phoenix last month when the right hinge on my 2014 Dell completely gave out, splitting the plastic bezel in two directions. Instead of spending $60 on a replacement frame online, I melted hot glue into the cracked corners and clamped it overnight, and six weeks later it still holds tight. Am I the only one who thinks this is a real fix and not just a temporary joke?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaretramirez28d ago

Oh geez, @kimfisher is out here acting like we're doing heart surgery with a hot glue gun. Six weeks is six more weeks of use than a broken hinge gives you, so I call that a win in my book.

kimfisher28d ago

You say it "still holds tight" after six weeks, but that's barely any time at all for a laptop you probably use every day. A real fix needs to handle the tension and torque of opening and closing the lid hundreds of times. Hot glue is brittle and will crack again, leaving you with glue chunks stuck in the hinge and even harder to fix later. I've tried similar shortcuts on old electronics, and they always fail right when you need them most, like during a work call or right before a deadline.

phoenix_bailey27d ago

Has anyone checked if the heat from your laptop is slowly melting that glue over time?