Stressed out hinge

It all started two days back, when my laptop [Dell C640] started giving strange noise. A noise which is of higher amplitude than the normal fan noise was coming from my laptop. The worst thing is the next, the CPU topped up at 100%. You know how it is when the CPU tops at 100%, it is as good as dead one. On the first thought, my guess was some virus hijacking my processor. But, then I found out that the cooling fan was not working, the processor might top out because of that too. This is my official laptop and we have Dell Gold Tech support. So I called up and reported the problem. The support guy also thought that the cooling fan might be the cause for the problem and went on to setup a technician to come and replace the cooling fan. There was some misunderstanding in taking down the contact info and delayed the arrival of technician by a day. In that one day, I also figured that one of the hinges of the LCD screen is broken and asked for a replacement.

So today, the technician came to my place to fix the laptop. We figured out the cause for the problem! As we guessed, the problem is the cooling fan. But, why the cooling fan stopped working suddenly? It was due to the broken hinge! The broken pieces of the hinge fell inside and blocked the spinning of the cooling fan. The processor, not able to contact its cooling buddy, reduced its processing power so it doesn't burn itself up resulting in topping up to 100%. A nice long chain of problems, building on top of one another. And you know the main reason? It's me! No, I didn't drop the laptop, but I stressed out the right hinge, by always opening the laptop screen with my left hand holding the left corner. This introduces mechanical stress in the right hinge and after all these months, it finally gave up. Lesson learnt today, always open your laptop by holding the middle of the screen! It was frustrating, but a nice lesson learnt.

later...