I have a fairly new laptop where the audio has become increasingly janky - it can work fine for a while, and then suddenly descend into white noise before being completely gone until I bend the laptop ever so slightly for it to come back. Obviously a physical problem.

I contacted the vendor (until my dialogue with them is concluded, I will not name them), and was told that from my description, this sounded like an issue with a subboard where the audio port and sound chip is located. They wanted me to send it in, but this would require sending it out of the country for a 48 hour repair (+ shipping time) which I was not too keen to do, and especially as I am quite dependent on the laptop in my daily life, I wouldn't want to be without it for that long.

However, the problem has since gotten worse, and I recently contacted them again in preparation for finally sending it in, in fear of this become ever worse. However, now it has been more than 6 months since my purchase and they won't prioritize the repair anymore, bumping the repair time up to 2-3 weeks. This is way too long for me to consider at this point, so I am now looking at options to have it replaced locally instead, in case we cannot find a suitable solution.

However, I don't really know how to proceed with this, as I am quite clueless about hardware. Would such a repair be possible by someone not having the proper schematics? Would it be easy to identify the correct subboard to order if I am unable to get the information from the vendor?

It was also difficult to assess the quality of the local repair shops - some of them give the impression that they are quite competent, but rather seem like they might specialize in helping grandmothers set up their e-mail client. How would I determine if I can trust them with my device?