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Here’s a good one I just encountered. 20 years in tech, I’ve never seen this. This Dell Latitude 5531 laptop turns off the screen and keyboard backlight (even the power button backlight) if it’s angled wrong. It’s under warranty and will be going back to Dell to let them deal with it, just checking what you all think: cabling problem? Or something like the accelerometer chip telling it it thinks it’s falling? Or an ambient brightness sensor, maybe? Just curious if anyone in the community has seen this before?

9 Spice ups
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I would almost guarantee it has to do with the reed switch in the lid close sensor.

Typically I see this when folks wear magnetic watch bands, but I’ve never seen it be a factor of tilting :joy: most cheap reed switches are basically just thin wires that bend when exposed to a magnet, though, so it’s possible one of them broke off in a way that tilting it connects them and sets it off.

EDIT: In the video it looks like you have multiple stacked, I also see this behavior a lot when they’re stacked, as the magnet from the bottom one lines up with the reed switch of the top one.

12 Spice ups
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My Gen1 X1 Carbon has a light sensor that automatically controls screen brightness and keyboard backlighting depending on light levels in the room.

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That’s weird…if you push the screen back more (ie, way past open 90 degrees), does it still do this? Definitely a good thing for Dell to work out under warranty, and a good one to send off rather than having a tech come on site. Was it like this out of the box, or did this one come back to you with the problem after being deployed?

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It came back like this after being deployed to an employee for 2.5 years, who was recently RIF’d. It’s already gone back to Dell for diagnosis. I kind of wish I’d kept it a little longer, but have a lot on my plate. Let them work it out. I’m gonna feel dumb if it was just because it was sitting on top of another laptop, as someone mentioned. But that’s why I tried to test it just holding it out in my hand. #shrug

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Is there a magnet under the desk or on that pad?

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Issue is with the loose monitor connection on the board it is very easy to fix if you have minimum HW knowledge.

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I wonder if the person who took the vid is a user or admin ??
Obviously its not turning the lappy off…the admin could prove that by logging in and opening a application like notepad etc then do the same motion.

Another test is to set power settings where “do nothing” when lid is closed…this can prove if its the lid sensor…

Yup…coz the lappy did not “switch off” but just off the screen power going off as if lid was closed.

3 Spice ups
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This was my very first suspicion – from past experience.

3 Spice ups