Photo 1. Hinge broken on left side of NEC MobilePro 700.
Photo 2. Exposed hinge after repairs.
April 1999: The Hinge Snaps: The screen snapped off (see Photo 1) while closing the lid after using the unit. The system, amazingly, still functioned properly.
April 21, 1999: Spoke to an NEC Support Person: I called NEC's tech support and spoke to a very courteous representative. I suggested he look at Photo 1 on my web page so he could actually see the problem. He said that since my unit is out of warranty (I purchased it in January 1998), the flat fee repair charge would be US$230. I decided that since I had other H/PCs available, I would not have the unit repaired.
April 21, 1999 - The Solution: Since the unit is out of warranty and I had no intention of paying $230 to repair it, I had nothing to lose by trying to repair it myself. I looked at the exposed hinge and noticed that the small screw in the hinge seemed loose. I used a small Philips screwdriver to tighten it a bit. Then, I used a small flathead screwdriver to widen the plastic enough to force the hinge back into the plastic tube area. At this point the lid still did not close properly. I then removed the small plastic cover over the hinge (see item pointed to by the lower white arrow in Photo 2) and found that the screw was too loose. I tighted the screw a bit more and covered the exposed hinge (see top arrow in Photo 2).
The unit seems to still work fine. It appears that the original problem - difficult to open/close the screen lid - was due to a loose screw in the hinge. This fix, by the way, is unique to the NEC MobilePro 700. The color NEC MobilePro 750C uses a completely different design.
Disclaimer: This problem description and solution has been presented for informational purposes only. I do not advocate performing any of the steps described here. Performing the steps described above probably voids your warranty.
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