L521x (XPS 15) Spark at Monitor Hinge

Hi,

I noticed a spark on the left monitor hinge of my laptop and this resulted in the battery light starting to blink ( 4x amber, 1x white) and also the laptop not being to run without being plugged in to the charger. Also when I was tilting my monitor, a spark was visible and the laptop went off.

Not having warranty for the laptop anymore, I decided to open it and see if I can find any visible problems that I might be able to find. Not really having hope to be able to fix it and not wanting to pay Dell $200, just for them to tell me that I will have to replace the motherboard, which would be another $250. I was actually very surprised that I was able to fix the problem on my laptop.

Once I opened it, I saw that there is a cable on the left hinge, which is getting squeezed by the hinge when it is moving with the monitor. After carefully moving the cable away from the metal hinge, my problems are gone. I am not seeing a spark at the hinge anymore and also the battery light stopped blinking and I am able to use the laptop on the battery without having it plugged in.

The cable I moved, is still getting squeezed by the hinge, so I am planning to open my laptop again and wrap it into electric tape and try to remove it from its current location so that this problem will not happen anymore.

This is were I need your help. Would somebody be able to open their L521x XPS 15 Laptop and send me a picture of the location of their cable at the left monitor hinge. This would help me to see where the cable should be located and not be damaged by the hinge.

My laptop is a replacement for my original Dell laptop which had an accident and was beyond repair. The new laptop is refurbished and my guess is that the cable might have been placed by accident into the hinge, when it was repaired for the previous owner.

I am attaching an image of my laptop to show you the cable in question.

Please send me a picture of your L521x. The Dell Manual describes how to remove the back cover of your L521x. Please follow the directions in the manual, to make sure you don't damage your laptop when removing the back cover. You can find the manual here, page 11 describes the steps to remove the back cover.

Thank you,

 Martin