How does your laptop computer turn off its display when you close the cover?

A brand new laptop was misbehaving randomly. It was going into standby mode and turning the display off. A technician replaced some parts but the problem remained. Whenever a product begins to fail intermittently, you need to know how it was supposed to work in order to troubleshoot it.

One way to turn off the display is to have a small, normally-closed, magnetic reed switch (as shown above) at the lower left corner of the body, and a small magnet in the corresponding upper left corner at the edge around the display. When you close the cover the magnet moves near the switch, and it cuts off the power. At Computerworld on February 3, 2020 there was a Shark Tank article titled Memory-Lane Monday: PEBKAC – but VERY close to the keyboard. PEBKAC is a user error acronym meaning a Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.  

The user was seen wearing a magnetic bracelet on her left wrist. She was inadvertently shutting of the display. The troubleshooter explained to her why she should not be doing that.

Back on November 1, 2017 I posted on the topic of A humorous story about ‘healing’ a laptop computer with a dim screen.

An image of a reed switch and a cartoon of a laptop user both came from Wikimedia Commons.