Macbook pro fans blowing when lid closed

my MBpro 13", mid 2010, recently developed the following problem: whenever i thy to close the lid - and recently even when the lid is not completely open - a few moments later the fans start to blow on full speed and the computer gets essentially unresponsive: the cursor will barely move, and the Activity monitor shows a cpu-load of 250 %. When switching off, the MB will usually restart - instead of switching off. Restart is problematic and frequently hangs, forcing me to pressing the power button for more than 5 min. Restart with reset of NVRAM sometimes helps.

I have definitely established the connection between "closing the lid" and "becoming unresponsive"; i suspect a hardware issue connected to the mechanical movement of the lid.

Any ideas? or should i just write off the MB, seen its age ???

thanks for any advice.