Can I fix my laptop myself?

[spudalicious]

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop, the little bit on the side where you plug in the headphones (extra speakers whichever) is loose. I had external speakers plugged in and tripped over the wire which yanked it out. Now its loose and I was wondering if there was anyway I could fix it, its quite annoying as it doens't make a proper connection now and I can't plug it into my stereo! grrr... please help.I have taken my laptop apart a few times for various things but I am not sure this is how to go about it. PC World are verily expensive.. please help!

[Beswad]

I haven't carried out any repairs on laptop as yet, but my guess is that the headphone socket which is soldered onto the circuit board has been broken, you will need a soldering iron and a very fine tip. If the circuit track is loose, theres little you can do, but try to trace the track from the broken point back to another point of the circuit and solder a piece of fine wire (wire from inside a old mouse lead would be ideal). Hopefully it should work.