Screen flapping on Z12

Hi I have noticed my screen 'flaps' around a bit on my z12, it seems a bit loose when I open the lid of the laptop, I would say it is loose for a few cm from the position I open the lid to. What is odd is that it is the screen itself flopping around, the hinges on the barrel part of the laptop are rock solid still. Also when I hold the laptop upside down it flops down a few centimetres. Does anyone know a fix? it's very annoying as my warranty ran out 1 month ago.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/491699-vaio-vpc-z11-hinge-problem.html

Basically, what you have to do is remove the palmrest (and keyboard, etc).
Remove pretty much all the screws on the bottom of the computer (except for the three on the white strip under the battery). Note that there are three types of screws, so you might want to make a map so that you can remember which goes where.

Here's a guide that I used: http://www.newmodeus.com/pics/SONY/Sony-Z-caddy-installation-.html

Be careful of the keyboard cable. If you want you can carefully lift it up from the motherboard, or if not you can just flip over the palmrest and perhaps put a cloth or paper between it and the motherboard/bottom of the laptop so that the palmrest doesn't get scratched.

After that, you should be able to reach the two silver screws on each side of the bottom of the LCD screen bezel.


Try carefully tighten them a bit. I recall reading that it isn't too hard to strip/damage the screw holes there which is why I say carefully.

Before you put back the keyboard, check that the thermal pads for the GPU memory are still in place(circled in yellow):

(photo from here)

The thermal pads should either be stuck on the motherboard as in the picture or it might be stuck to the underside of the keyboard. Either is fine as long as it is in the right place.

By the way, I just did this last week. My hinges are all better now. ^_^

 

Great! will attempt this over the weekend. Is the fix permanent or will it happen again in the future? Seems like a design flaw from Sony.

 

I read in one of the other threads that people had to retighten the screws after a few months.

 

will happen again, unless you use loctite...

and this is true if you dont use loctite (it's about time for me to open up my Z again.

Oh and OP, you better do it soon, I dont know if you want to put the weight of the screen (however light) on the plastic bottom. But be careful with the ribbon cables, messing that up could be a headache (trying to source out the part)