so, what's the lesson?

i need to be clear: i've worked tech support. in fact, i've worked hardware replacement tech support for the exact company that manufactured my laptop. if somebody else did exactly what i did, and called in, i could have been on the other end of the phone. and, i'll tell you: none of this should have happened. i knew what i was doing, and i didn't do anything wrong.

the lesson is that laptops can be exceedingly finicky when you take them apart. small buildups of static and imperceptible shifts in grounding can alter what is a complicated and not always properly shielded signal path. it could have even gotten hit by the magnetic field in the apartment.

what happened to me is proof that disassembling a laptop is inherently dangerous and should be avoided unless you're highly technical and highly confident in it.