The back cover with hinges costs about $50 in the US.  Add an hour's labor if you can't replace it yourself.

You can order the part from www.parts-people.com or they can also do the repair. Here is the part.

You can order the part from www.parts-people.com or they can also do the repair. Here is the part.

IF it is still under warranty call the tech support and they will fix ,tell them that the hinges came apart first and say its not physically damaged ,if it is not under warranty get a complete care warranty and then call them that would only cost you less to fix this issue with the computer .

I had this same problem that MANY others have had and Dell charged me approx 250$ to fix it because it had been a year and a half since I bought the laptop and the warranty only lasts one year.

I have a <6 month old 5445 and its right hinge is beginning to fail.  The laptop is pristine, well cared for and not even a nick on it yet.  Since it is well within warranty I called Dell support which was no help, they consider this user damage and would not work with me on it.  They want $160 to fix a design problem.

Since it is "out of warranty" I tore it down, found the design to be severely lacking for the torque setting on the hinge.  What I found on the tear-down were 1 broken boss, and 2 cracked ones where the inserts fell out.  This appears to have put excessive stress on the bottom case which failed at the screw boss that is accessible externally.

What appears to be the cause:  If the hinge torque is too high the screw inserts exert a lot of stress on the plastic bosses.  Since they are ultrasonically installed they add more stress to the boss walls.  The wall design is way too thin for the load and likely cracks at a molding knit line (sorry, mechanical engineer coming out).  Once the boss cracks the insert becomes loose, transferring load to the remaining inserts/bosses.  This is how this laptop failed, it was slightly noticeable at first then became catastrophic fairly fast.  it took about a week, or ~20 opening/closing of the lid to go from noticeable to failure.  The design is poor for a high stress application.

I have epoxied the bosses and inserts back in place, repaired the broken boss on the lower case, and loosened the hinge torque to lower the load.  You wouldn't know it ever failed, let's hope it holds up!

Due to the lack of standing behind the product, observation of very poor engineering, and positive experience with alternative laptops I must admit I am moving on with no plan to purchase another Dell product after this experience.

Good luck to those encountering this problem.