One of the most common ways laptops break, especially over the long run, affects the very thing that makes it a laptop—its hinges. The truth of the matter is that hinges are moving parts, and moving parts, whether we like it or not, fail over time. Being careful gets you a long way, but it'll happen at some point anyway. And when it does, you need to know what to do.

What should you do once your laptop's hinge breaks? Can you repair it? Should you use it like that? We'll walk you through the steps.

1. Stop Using It Immediately

The first thing you need to do is to stop using it immediately. Depending on the laptop model, a hinge break can either be a minor inconvenience or a catastrophic issue. With the hinge, you could be compromising other important components, like a power/video cable for the screen. As such, to be on the safer side, don't touch it. Turn it off.

If the laptop is already open, don't try to close it unless you have no way of carrying it otherwise, and if it's closed, don't try to open it. Using the hinge can cause more damage to your laptop and maybe even break something that wasn't broken before.

2. Take It to a Technician

The next step to take is to take it to a technician. You need to evaluate the damage and whether the screen's connections sustained any significant damage as a result of the hinge break.

It might be tempting to keep using it like this, especially if everything else works. But the damage can worsen over time and eventually affect the screen's functionality, something you probably don't want. Because of this, you probably want a second opinion on it.

As we said in the previous step, don't try to open/close it without a technician's help unless it's absolutely needed. The only case where that would be fine is if it's open and closing it is the only way you can carry it. If you do need to do it, make sure to be extremely careful.

The technician will disassemble your laptop, assess the damage, and let you know how viable a fix is. Most of the time, unless there was damage to the actual casing of the computer, it shouldn't be an overly complicated fix.

3. See if the Fix Is Viable (and Affordable!)

Now that you have a second opinion from a technician, you should be able to see if a fix is doable. The average price to repair a laptop's hinge can range anywhere from $25 to $300, depending on age, hinge complexity, internal wiring, and more. If it's a newer laptop, that price is probably sitting in the upper range.

If you got a quote, and it's a price within the realm of possibility for you, then, by all means, try to get it fixed as soon as you can. While a laptop can still work with a broken hinge, it'll be way more comfortable to get it repaired and use it normally.

If you can't get it fixed, don't try to do it at home. While some home hinge fixes can be performed as long as you're willing to get nasty with super glue, it's likely not worth it, and you'll have more problems than solutions.

Do keep reading to see what you can do, though.

4. I Can't Fix It. What Now?

If you can't get it fixed, that's fine. If the repair is too expensive, or if the hinge is broken beyond repair and a fix needs to get deeper, no need to worry.

As we mentioned before, there's life with a broken hinge. If you do things right and are willing to make sacrifices, your laptop can continue living a long life. We just wanted you to exhaust all possible repair routes first since your workflow won't be the same, and you'll sacrifice a lot, or all, of its portability going forward.

How you use your laptop now will depend on how damaged it is. If the laptop is opened, but everything is fine other than the hinge, you can probably set it down on a table and give it a permanent or semi-permanent spot since you clearly won't be able to lug it around as often.

If it has a removable battery, it's better to remove it if possible—setting it down in a permanent place means you'll probably have to plug it in 24/7, and that can be highly detrimental to the laptop's battery life, not to mention that it can also sustain physical damage. If your battery bulks up, you'll have another problem on your hands.

If you can't open it, or if there's another broken component (like the screen), it's still possible to use it like that, but you'll have to give it a second life as a desktop PC. In most cases, you can take a broken laptop and plug a monitor into it, then a keyboard and a mouse—or use a USB hub and plug them in there. For this, heaps of great USB docks allow you to do this exact thing, so again, all is not lost.

There's Life Beyond Hinges

It can be painful and complicated to have your laptop's hinge break, and it might feel like there's nothing you can do to bring it back to the state it once was. You've probably been looking at the signs for a while, yet you couldn't do anything.

The good news, though, is that not everything is lost. You can take it to a technician and have them fix it—broken hinges are surprisingly common—or, if that's not possible, you can continue using it if you're willing to sacrifice portability.

There's life beyond hinges, and not everything is lost if yours breaks.