u/100limes

High-res photo of part in question.

I’m looking for some expert advice on a hardware repair for my 6-year-old Dell XPS 7590.

The Problem: The FPC connector for the touchpad (labeled TP on the motherboard) is badly damaged. The locking flap is gone, and as you can see in the photo, the plastic housing on the left side is partially broken/cracked. Because of this, the ribbon cable doesn't stay in place and there’s no contact, so the touchpad is dead.

Details:

• Device: Dell XPS 7590
  

• Connector type: 8-pin FPC, 0.5mm pitch, bottom contact.
  

• Proximity: It is located very close to the DDR4 RAM slots.
  

So I'm wondering:

• can I just glue it in place?
• Do I make a shim and then glue it?
• I have a soldering iron, but not a lot of experience and I'm not sure I trust myself to de-solder the old port and solder in a new one.
• giving it to a repair shop would probably cost more than I'm willing to invest in the device at this point, unfortunately. Or am I too pessimistic about this?