Laptop works only upside down

I have a Dell inspiron n5010. CPU i5, 4gb ram. Problem started as follows, I was palying fifa at night, nothing wrong happened. Turned off the Laptop and went to sleep, woke up the next day and turned it on, but won't work. It gave me a black screen with 2 options. "Launch start up repair" or "start windows normally" regardless of which option I choose Windows wont boot and it either hangs on the logo screen of microsoft or shut down automatically (like when power goes off)

I have though the windows got corrupted, so I tried doing format and clean installation of windows. But unfortunately windows install kept hanging at "setup is starting now" screen I wasnt able to install windows, and after several attempts I gave up and installed ubuntu on the hope of being able to access my data on the hard drive and overwrite windows. Installing ubuntu was successful and I accessed my hard drive and transfered the files I want, after that I was able to format the hard drive and install a new windows, but before that the real problem had started. I noticed that whenever I put my laptop on the normal pose it turns on for some seconds a max of some minutes then turns off. This problem didn't occur on ubuntu, I noticed the random turning off of the laptop when windows wasn't able to boot, prior to installing ubuntu, and when I tried installing windows after ubuntu. I don't know how the idea came but I put the laptop upside down and opened it (screen lying on table and the part holding all other things is vertical with the table) and in this position the laptop was on all the time. I managed to intall windows and reached the desktop screen, then tunred it around to normal position and it tunred off. I tried this several times and turning off keeps on happening.

I went to support on dell website and when the laptop on upside down position I did a full online diagnostic test and hard drive failed the test. "Linear read test" and "smart self read test" were marked red and hard drive failed the test!

Could the turning off occur due to a problem in the hard drive? If so then why does the laptop work only upside down and turns off in normal pose? And how come I accessed the hard drive on ubuntu if it was damaged?

I want to send my laptop to a repair shop, but the nearest dell repair shop is like 200km away for my place :/

I apologize for the long post.

Any help please!
 
I'll take a shot at it... your HDD is loose...or it has a screw loose... and it shorts out or doesn't get proper electric power when it is 'right side up'. Otherwise it is in worse shape and the errors are from mini-headcrashes. Trust the diagnostic.

Grab the service manual off the Dell website and consider going thru the steps to "install a new HDD", but if you can find some kind of physical problem you can correct then you can do it while keeping the old one.

While in there you may want to give it a thorough cleaning - the dust devils are ferocious.


Of course, $50 to NewEgg for a 128GB SSD might be kinda fun..
 
Sorry, just couldn't resist the opportunity :- send it to the RNC candidate for the election in Nov. :grin:
 
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