Laptop screen broken after 2 weeks

Jakg

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

After 5 years repairing laptop screens, I can't say I've seen one just crack by itself.

This is the exact reason why the stores will appear unhelpful to this sort of fault - they will see hundreds of "it just cracked" screens and loads of "it just stopped charging one day" busted sockets which were all blatently users damaging them.

I've never had a laptop screen suddenly break, nor has anyone I know... it does happen, but is very *very* rare.

Esqui

bod1467 wrote: »

Although the fault description here (2/3 of screen blank) suggests a component failure rather than physical damage.

That's 2/3 of the screen "blank with that looks like a watercolour river running across the screen where you can see a mark when the laptop is turned off."

Almost certainly has been damaged, from how that sounds.

veryunsure

We had a similar problem with an ACER laptop. It was caused by a hand being placed on the screen too heavily.
Although it was gutting (the thing was only 2 weeks old) I had to accept we had damaged it as we could see the handprint on the screen. (It was a weird problem, just black and white light on the screen; screen was showing white and the handprint in black).

I think the screens are too fragile. I had to claim on our house insurance and pay a £150 excess. They said it cost £300+ to fix and the laptop itself was £399.

I doubt the same thing will happen again in my household

Gillyx

Would agree with the poster above, when this happened to a laptop in our house, we had to claim the house insurance. Currys did take it and have a look at it, but very rarely will a laptop screen go like that on it's own. Even the slightest knock can cause it, sadly, so even though you can't remember anything specific even a heavy hand could be the cause or as someone else said closing it over with a pen on the keyboard.

mattyprice4004

veryunsure wrote: »

We had a similar problem with an ACER laptop. It was caused by a hand being placed on the screen too heavily.
Although it was gutting (the thing was only 2 weeks old) I had to accept we had damaged it as we could see the handprint on the screen. (It was a weird problem, just black and white light on the screen; screen was showing white and the handprint in black).

I think the screens are too fragile. I had to claim on our house insurance and pay a £150 excess. They said it cost £300+ to fix and the laptop itself was £399.

I doubt the same thing will happen again in my household

Screens are too fragile? They're a thin film of glass, they're not able to take much stick.

veryunsure

Yes, they are thin and they are glass.

You don't have to look very far to find tales about how easily they break.

Ours broke because someone put their hand on it; it was hidden under a duvet and whoever did it didn't know it was there and didn't realise what they had done. I accept that it was an accidental breakage and we paid up; I didn't even take it back and try to get it repaired for nothing.

Yet the repairer told me how easily they are to break. That's what prompted my comment. The thin glass could be strengthened with a thin layer of something more sturdy.

mattyprice4004

You can find with some HP business notebooks and some older IBM laptops that there's actually a very thin alloy 'grid' behind the screen panel itself - probably why I've been so lucky so far. I found my laptop under a stack of 6 parcels last week, after my missus tried to tidy my office.

I don't see why more manufacturers don't do this - a very good point.

Mista_C

It sounds like something was placed on top of the closed laptop applying pressure from the back of the screen. I've also seen this kind of damage from closing the lid from one of the corners rather than the centre.

It's also entirely possible that there is a defective hinge which, while closing the laptop, put a pressure strain on the screen causing this damage. This is usually noticable from the location of the damage, with the main damage being in one of the lower corners near the hinge spreading toward the upper area being held while closing the lid.

As said it's down to the shop to prove it's accidental damage and not a manufacturing defect. They cannot just dismiss it without a report from someone suitably qualified.

Bellalolo

Forgot to mention Currys originally tried to charge £213 to replace HP screen, I got a quote from an independant shop who said worst case £99 part and labour.

High__Flyer_2

When did they quote you that price?
There used to be a fixed price repair, it was the same charge for everything. Which in some cases worked out a hell of a lot cheaper than going independent, however, the rest of the time indie stores were much cheaper.