T60 - cracking sound & some play in left hinge

[coolsilicon]

Hello forum!
I have my T60 for a little more than one year now. I take care for it and handle it cautiosly. Anyway, yesterday for the first time I noticed a crackling sound from the left hinge plus I there is some play in it.

I printed out the respective pages of the HWMM and checked all screws I could get my hands on. I removed both bezels, the one of the display and the one of the chassis (which surrounds the kb). All screws were tightened well, those at the sides of the display as well.

Since there is some play, I'd suspect it's something inside the hinge itself.

Anyone here who has/had this? Did it get worse? I'd rather live with it since I hate the idea of not having that thing here.

I have the 3 years on site warranty, so my hope is, they presumably can fix it at my home (while I'm there and can watch the guy who dares to touch my precious machine..). It's the 15" SXGA+ model, for the case this does make a difference.

[coolsilicon]

Just for the record:
I called the service center and they said a technician would call me back. He called back the next day and we made an appointment for the other day. He was a smart, young guy who disasmbled the machine within a very short time and exchanged the cracking hinge.

I watched him work and we had a nice conversation. It turned out, that he was also an instructor for people like himself who go out and conduct such service repairs. The whole repair took around half an hour or so. Excellent work.