Thinkpads Forum

Owning a T61 and looking to buy a T/W500, I want to find out about the hinges. The ones on my T61 are awful and have a lot of play and definitely detract from the overall feel of quality. Is it not the case on the 500? I didn't find any posts on Google, nor on here, so I'm hopeful.

Externally these look to be the same hinges as on the T61, but the manuals use different part numbers, so no sure way to tell whether they are the same without disassembling the machines.

I would expect T400/500 to be just like the T61 in this regard, but it has been suggested here that not all hinges on T61 are created equal. There are two vendors - Kato and Reel, and one of them (forgot which) is supposed to be of better quality.

Most of the T61 units (14") at my work have crappy hinges with lots of play after about 1-2 years. The T400 machines we have seem to be OK for now, but there is no way to know for sure yet whether they use better hinges, or maybe just happen to use the better of the two vendors, or maybe it's only because they haven't been around for as long yet.

Thanks. I noticed play as soon as I got my T61, so the fact that it isn't really an issue with the 400/500 models is a good sign that they should be at least decent. The screen on my T42 is still rock solid and has only the slightest bit of play, after (ab)using it since 2004.

w500 hinges felt a lot better/stiffer than t61 ones, but then 1 of them broke and now both are just totally locked up and broken lol, so dunno what even happened there (cant even get them to move with pliers)
(w500 hinges seem to be 2mm thicker, plus wider on the right side)

as far as the interchangeability goes, they are definitely not compatible in that way, because t61 hinges have a smaller wire routing space(w500 wires might still squeeze through tho), but the screen part of them is totally different, so they wont even fit in from that point at all...
the bottom part does have some slight differences, but both will probably fit into the base and the screw mounts etc... (w500 hinges wont fit into t61, but t61 hinges do fit into the w500 base...)

Rofl!
now i probably even figured out why the t61 hinges were wobbling the whole time... there is a really small pin under the main hinge mount, which basically holds in the screen part of the hinge, but it was fallen out like 50%, so the shaft part was just moving around, because there was nothing holding it in place from the top part of the shaft... (the pin was only in 50% into the shaft...).
so maybe some sticky pipe tape will hold that pin in place and it wont fall out anymore during the screen movements...

screenshot wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 04, 2020 3:34 pm

w500 hinges felt a lot better/stiffer than t61 ones, but then 1 of them broke and now both are just totally locked up and broken lol, so dunno what even happened there (cant even get them to move with pliers)
(w500 hinges seem to be 2mm thicker, plus wider on the right side)

If the T500 series use any similar hinges as the widescreen T61 versions, then it is the steel ones with the inners exposed on its sides like most older Dell hinges. They can withstand a lot of weight but not as elegant. They can get loose with lots of play with wear or get jammed with dust and can't move like yours.
Try a few drops of WD40 and see if now you can move it with pliers. This has fixed half a dozen pair of Dell hinges after discovering that half a year ago and saved many lid/bottom cover catastrophes.

i tired wd40 yesterday, but that didnt change anything... now i tried with 2 pliers, but 1 of them scratched the main hinge case etc..
plus the screen side of the metal has been broken into 3-4 different pieces on both sides already, so i can basically just cut open the lappy part of the hinge and see what's inside there lol