Replacing Lid

The hinges on my Studio 1737 have been giving out for quite a while now and the screen has become pretty flimsy. I'm assuming that the build quality just wasn't that great since my laptop hasn't endured anything strenuous but is literally falling apart at this point. Anyway, I need a new lid and new hinges and I found this on ebay. The only other place that I saw the hinges and lid for sale was parts-people.com and I couldn't find the lid for my particular model.

Does anyone know if this is the cheapest price that I'll be able to find online? I'm going to try and replace the lid myself. The only issue that I've found with the link above is that it doesn't seem to come with the front panel of the lid and I need to replace that as well. I would need one with a section for my webcam. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Are you sure the hinges are bad and not just loose? There are 4 screws that hold the hinges to the bottom of the notebook, 2 on the underside of the case and 2 inside, under the keyboard surround.

Assuming that that is the correct part number, an eBay search for "J411J" returns a large number of results, including a few sellers who are selling just the hinges for around $8 with free shipping. Changing just the hinges means you don't have to unplug the antenna cables from the wireless card(s) and risk damaging them.

Your existing bezel is re-usable as long as you're careful when removing it. Some versions have some double-sided tape on the inside which you should replace before re-installing the bezel.

If you want a new bezel, it should be part NU486. When installing a new one, make sure you don't get the protective plastic tape for the camera stuck between the bezel and the LCD, or you'll need to take the whole thing apart again to get it out.

 

Thanks so much for your post . I'm honestly not sure they're bad, but I would wager that they're likely to be loose and not broken since I haven't dropped the system or anything. That actually makes more sense now that I think about it since the issue has become gradually worse. Maybe they have just loosened over time.

How would I go about just trying to tighten the screws for the hinges? Do I need to remove the lid or just the bezel? Right now I can see the hinges behind the bezel (I believe those are the hinges at least), but I don't know if I should attempt to remove it or not.

 

Loose screws would explain a "wobbly" lid - one that has a lot of play for a small amount of travel. They wouldn't explain a lid that was floppy through its entire range of travel.

Actually, my first reply was somewhat incorrect. On the 1737 it seems as though all the hinge screws are inside the case. On my 1558, 2 are inside and 2 outside.

Here are 2 pictures from the service manual on the Dell web site:





You can read the complete instructions there, too.