Laptop screen frame breaking and coming away

Once you look under the frame for your monitor, you should find a cable running from that and connecting to the main board. A lot of the times it’s a ribbon cable, a flat thin cable, but sometimes it’s a standard cylindrical power cable that usually has an aluminum jacket on it. If your screen freaks out when you close it like that, that’s usually either because the cable was pinched and partially unplugged, or it’s been damaged by being bound up somewhere in the mechanism.

Your best bet is to:

1- Completely remove the casing around the front of the monitor and expose the cables

2- Inspect the cable for any obvious signs of damage, such as breaks in the jacket that expose the wiring

3- Reseat the cable connection, making sure that both sides are clean of dust and debris

4- Re-position the cable within the cable guides. The area around the monitor in the motherboard is usually designed with a series of shallow tabs, creating a channel that the cable can sit in where it is least likely to get pinched or pulled when mechanical force is applied to the hinge. If you make sure your cable runs through the channel, you minimize the risk of damage.

The most important thing to remember is that, if you’re not familiar with maintenance on these devices, uncomfortable or unconfident in your ability to maintenance the device, or if the device is under warranty, you should absolutely take this to a professional so that it is done correctly and you are most likely to receive your device in working order and continue using it.

that being said, computers are not as difficult to work on as technicians would have you believe, and if you are comfortable with the risk of the repair failing, getting in and trying to fix it yourself is a good opportunity to learn how they work. There is no experience as valuable as hands-on experience.

I started removing the bezel frame gently from the bottom right where it was already coming away.  Unfortunately, the whole thing seems to be attached by the hinges and while I was active around the corner that was the problem to start with, the screen became striped with purple and green, although I could still hear the television programme that I'd been watching - it seems that all is working perfectly except for the screen.  Also, the thin black sticky strip that looks to help keep the frame attached, has stretched.  I've left it lightly replaced and wondering what to do next.

Most likely, the hinges pulled out of the plastic assembly to which they attach, and which will need to be replaced.  You should disconnect power and remove the battery before replacing the part(s) that are broken, but you may also need a new display panel (or assembly if it's a touchscreen) at this point.

I don't understand how the screen could go so bad, a sort of purple and green tartan, when I was simply trying to gently push the bezel corner back - is a screen normally so delicate?   Anyway, is it possible to get only the top lid part of the lap top and attach it to the hinges of the current bottom part?  Or, buy a new one and swap the hard drive to the new laptop?  Can the same lap top be bought without a hard drive?

Yes, LCD displays are delicate (they're made of glass, after all) and they can break with a slight twist or mis-applied pressure.

The back cover is usually a separate part unless the system has a touchscreen -- if that's the case, you usually have to replace an entire assembly.

No, you can't buy a new system without a hard drive/SSD, but you wouldn't save much doing so -- the storage drive is a small fraction of the total cost of a new system;  even a 1T SSD at retail is under $100 these days.

The repair shop wanted too much, about half the price of a laptop I've seen on Dell's website for £300.00 (there's a discount on it).  If I buy the new one, can I put the old hard drive in the new one or isn't that as simple as I think it is, and will what's on the desk top be transferred as well as the "internal" documents?

You stand the best chance of having that work with the same model system.  Also be sure bitlocker is disabled before you move the drive (or that you have backed up the bitlocker key off system if it is enabled).

Thank you.

I have to say that I'm very disappointed with Dell.  I only had two others that lasted ages, the first one for I don't know how many years (it's the spare one I'm using now) and was replaced as I simply wanted a new one, and that didn't last quite as long but it was my fault but was perfect until then.  I wouldn't have believed how unhelpful they could have been with something that was a fault of their product.  I only looked at Dell laptops when I had to get a new one because of the other two, and decided it would be worth paying that little bit more that I would have normally.  I couldn't get anywhere with them other than having to pay to speak to someone.  There's no complaints department that I can discover nor contact details for their head office here. It's not that old a laptop and was only a few months out of warranty.  If I have to buy a replacement because of cost of repair, (I can't do anything for it my self nor do I know anybody who can), this will be the last Dell product I ever buy and will make sure to let anybody I know buying a computer or laptop the experience I have had.  I will avoid buying a Dell product again.  For such a big company, they don't have, seemingly, agents around.  I'm wary about taking it to a computer repair shop as I don't know who I'm handing my content to, they could be anybody setting up a shop, they might simply be hobbyists rather than experts, or criminals.  Although, having said that, the attitude of Dell doesn't make them come across all that well.  

I bought my Inspiron 5401/5408 in 2021 when I used to live in a different country. Recently, I moved back to my home country, and I began to have the same issue with the screen frame. First, it started with the left side of the frame, and now it spread over the right side.

Local technical support says, it is a manufacturing defect and a common issue for different types of Dell PCs but seems like for 5401 also, and they advised Dell should pay for fixing it. But you know what is horrible? all technical support in Georgia rejected me since PC I bought wasn't in Georgia (country).

Push Dell to pay for their manufacturing issue. It's not your problem what happened. I'll do the same.