I have a Dell OptiPlex 7090 Micro on my bench. It has intermittent response to the power button. Upon investigation I...

Given you are seeing the issue become intermittent / temporarily resolve with fiddling with the lid, this leads me to think the issue is a connector that isn't making perfect electrical contact. Generally with this situation, a good thing to try is disconnecting that connector, cleaning the metal contacts (all you need to use is a paper towel or Q-tip with a bit of rubbing alcohol), dry the connector (alcohol will evaporate pretty fast) and then re-insert and secure the connector. Here is a video covering disassembly (and keyboard replacement) of the model laptop you have. Note: many steps shown you WILL NOT NEED TO DO since you don't need to replace the keyboard (yet - you might if cleaning the connector doesn't work). Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKccaz2U... All you need to do is disassemble to the point where you can access that center ribbon cable, disconnect / clean / dry / re-insert it. Then use the laptop for a while and see if the problem happens again. If it doesn't for a week or so,...

Hmm, tricky one. The specifics of this vary laptop by laptop, so I can't be sure, but I can give you some general things to try. First up is 'just try it' - connect an external display and try to boot, see if anything pops up. Least effort involved, but also least likely to work. Still, it would be silly to try a bunch of difficult invasive stuff only to find out you could have done it easy. Next up would be to see if the laptop will run and try to boot with the lid closed: some models will recognize the combination of 1: laptop closed and 2: external display connected and conclude you want to use the laptop with a docking station like setup, and will work. Make sure to also connect an external keyboard and mouse. No joy there? After that things get invasive, ie. we need to do some hardware work. You could, at this point, opt to replace the screen. Alternative is to unplug the screen and then try to boot with an external monitor connected, hoping the BIOS understands the integrated screen is not connected...

"I've been monitoring temperatures on cpu and gpu and never had them go over 89°C" For reference, my CPU and GPU max at around the 60C mark, and typically run at 45C or less. In fairness, this is a desktop system, not a laptop, but 89C is HIGH. This is not a normal temperature for your CPU or GPU to be at. I would say this is quite hot to run and indicates a thermal management problem. Listen/feel for airflow from your fan outlets, is air moving? Is air moving strongly? Look for blockage in your airflow channels. If there is not blockage, it may be that the heatsink has lost high-quality thermal contact with either your CPU or GPU and needs to be removed, cleaned, thermal compound re-applied, and then put back together.

So, this is something that can be done, but involves hardware hacking. It's up to you if you feel comfortable going down this route. The way to clear the BIOS password from the X1 carbons is pretty well established: you use an EEPROM / flash chip programmer like the XGecu T56 or the new T76, or there are other flash programmers out there by other brands. You have to either connect to the BIOS chip on the motherboard or desolder it to mount it inside a chip reader module for the chip programmer, then you overwrite the BIOS with a clean version that doesn't have a password. It is a non-trivial job, but can be done. As to 'is this worth doing' - either for you to do yourself (buy the hardware and spend the time learning how to use it) or paying for someone else to do it... only you can answer that. Link to a YouTube video example of someone doing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ypCYSxb...

It is highly unlikely. If the graphics are separate from the CPU then they will 98% likely be direct-soldered to the motherboard. If the graphics are being sourced from CPU-integrated graphics then it depends if you can upgrade the CPU - but it is likely the CPU is also soldered to the motherboard. You CAN check though: go into your device manager and get the exact CPU model your laptop has, then either google it or post it here so we can look it up to find out if it is a BGA (Ball Grid Array - meaning soldered on) model or not. If the GPU is being sourced from integrated-CPU functions, and if the CPU is not a soldered on model (it is far more likely these days it will be soldered on though), then you could upgrade your graphics to an extent by upgrading your CPU. But even if you can upgrade your CPU, you would want to be careful to compare the power consumption / thermal power profile (TDP) of the CPU you already have with the one you are thinking of replacing it with - laptops are typically designed with...

Update: I'm pretty sure I've found it. Going to answer my own post so anyone else looking for this answer doesn't have to re-invent this particular wheel. TL;DR: https://www.highly-elec.com/product/illuminated-tact-switches/tact-switch--5 I started looking at the switch under my microscope, searching for any usable markings. On the broken plastic area I can make out the number '13' though I'm not sure if that is a partial number, but on the rear of the switch was the payoff: 'HIGHLY' - which is a Chinese electronics manufacturer that specializes in switches. Measuring the size of the switch at on the side (horizontal axis when facing the 'front' of the power switch) measured at roughly 6.5mm, hard to be exact since I'm having to eyeball things a bit (it's a tight fit and I can't quite get the jaws of my caliper around the part). Once I found the brand name and started looking through their products, I found one that visually looked right in the 'Tact Switch' category and found 'Model：TP6152 Series'. This...

Here is a video on performing a hard reset for the Nokia C300: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIaVp-SfYBs It will wipe the phone, but it will also make the phone usable. If you want a solution that keeps the data, then you are getting into hardware hacking territory or the kind of software solutions that typically are held by governments and intelligence agencies - they exist, and if you have the equipment and are willing to invest a bunch of time researching how to do it, you can get there, but it is non-trivial.

For stripped screws there are tools called 'stripped screw extractor' or 'spiral screw extractor' or 'speed out' or 'easy out'. There are a few different forms of the tool but they do the same thing: bite into the metal of the screw so you can unscrew it. They aren't expensive, you can find them on Amazon or other places. Make sure to get a set that has a very small one and you should be able to get the screw out. Then buy a pack of replacement SSD screws (you can also get those on Amazon) and you should be good.