WiFi Range almost gone

Hello,

As many other people experienced, the display hinges of my 7559 became loose. The threads where you screw in the display broke off on the left side. As a consequence, whenever I closed/opened my screen, the hinge moved as a whole and lifted the top part of the case up. I fixed this by buying a new bottom base and migrating the laptop to it. At the same time as the hinge started to malfunctioning, my WiFi signal all of a sudden dropped to 1 bar, even though I’m sitting right next to the router. Also, it didn’t detect any other WiFis, even though there are usually about 8 other WiFi networks. The problem even remained after exchanging the white and black antenna cables on the wifi card with each other (meaning I plugged in the white cable where the black one was, and the black one where the white one was). When I use my phone as a hotspot and extend my arm away from the laptop holding the phone, the signal dropps to 1 bar. The closer I get to the laptop/screen, the stronger it gets.

Dell said that it might be the antenna cable. Since I don’t have warranty it would cost me around 200€. Any ideas what I can do before sending it in? I assume the antenna cables are the issue, but it might also be the WiFi card, though I dount it..