Could My Laptop Chassis Be Plastic?

Just got an HP laptop at Sam's Club. (17-inch screen, HP Pavilion something or other.)

The chassis seems to have some flex in it. Is this possibly plastic?

If the chassis is plastic, how do they avoid things breaking internally? Are they counting that the circuit boards inside can flex a bit too? Or are there smaller circuit boards with flexible harnesses or wires in between?

How do they handle reducing RF radiation (interference with TVs and so on)? Seems there should be some shielding foil or similar required?

Do these things ever fatigue fail? Is there such a thing as a cracked notebook chassis?

Thanks, Dave A.

 

Many consumer notebooks have plastic chassis, some have an internal frame made of mag. alloy. Business notebooks typically have a mag alloy exterior (bottom/sides, lid in some cases)

As for the rest, that's a very good question?

 

Just a point of order here, but laptops are not made to be flexed.

Your chassis is probably plastic, but that's standard.

I read you other thread, and I've gotta say, I wouldn't advise taking your laptop apart when you have so little knowledge of what you're dealing with. Laptop hardware isn't an area where you can tinker your way to learning - you can damage things quite easily.

Read up a little (read: lot) before ... getting curious

 

RF radiation from a notebook computer is negligible. They don't need any extra shielding.

 

I'm just curious. I've taken stuff apart on my motorcycle, too, just to see what is in there. My track record isn't 100% there ... I botched a valve adjustment and the dealership was happy to take over where I left off for only $450. But overall I do OK.

It is true that laptops aren't made to be flexed for sport. But it seems that people unavoidably would put them on surfaces that aren't level and stack a few books on top of them, or pack them into briefcases or backpacks in a way where they get flexed. I'm just curious about the design assumptions that go into a laptop and how they survive the flexing.

I had a Toshiba Satellite (gave it to a friend recently who was computerless) that survived being knocked off a table twice by my cats (screen assembly came apart and everything, but snapped back together easily). I'm surprised that thing lasted so long. They seem to be in general tougher than one would think ...

 

Yeah, laptops aren't exactly fragile. They're not tanks, but they certainly won't fall apart if you stack a few textbooks on them or stuff them into bags. In most scenarios like that, the worst you'll do is scratch the exterior.

 

I don't think (s)he was taking it apart - (s)he simply observed that the chassis had flex. Hey, I learned a lot from gutting lots of laptops. I only broke one .

Going back to the question, yes, your HP is almost 100% likely plastic. The industry is slowly shifting to magnesium alloy and aluminum, but It'll be a while yet. I've seen plenty of cracked cases. A very familiar example to me is the casing of the white plastic Macbook (the cheap one). It really depends on the quality of the construction, but as long as you're not dropping the notebook all over the place, the plastic should hold up. I have an old Dell that weighs 9 lbs that I hauled around for 5 years - no cracks.

As for the RF, I have no idea. Perhaps the plastic is lined with some sort of thin metal, or some foil of some sort.

 

All laptops undergo stress testing, and the plastics/other materials are carefully chosen for strength and weight., but at the end of the day they're still electronic equipment, and unless you've got a toughbook, you probably want to treat them carefully.

As for tinkering, if you're interested you could consider getting an old desktop, as the basic parts are the same, and the components are a little more forgiving.