I have a story from my current workplace which threw me and the other IT staff for a loop.
Get a support ticket from one of the staff saying that the screen of their laptop keeps "going black" when they are using the computer. So I set up a time to take a look and ventured away from my desk to see what's going on.
It's worth noting that this is a laptop, less notable is that it is a shared device as different people work this shift, regardless, all the staff that share it are adamant it only happens with this one user. So I asked them to demonstrate, they open a browser and start typing, sure enough after a sentence or two the screen goes black and the machine locks / goes to sleep.
I ask to take a look at the laptop and log back in, open notepad and start banging away on the keyboard like a cracked out chimpanzee, nothing happens. I hit every key on the keyboard, double checked hotkey / function keys, can't get it to happen. Now I had written a small exe for our staff that locks their workstations when unplugging their security keys and killed it just to make sure that wasn't causing issues, nope that's not it.
Then they tell me they even swapped laptops and the problem follows this user... So I blow out the user profile and log them back in and let it sync again, issue still persists. Now I am watching them type like a hawk trying to see if I can spot what key sequence or wizardry is happening to cause this issue.
I can't find any reason that makes sense, when I check the event logs it just says "Machine sleep due to lid closure or button press". Happens on 2 different laptops so it's unlikely to be a faulty lid switch or loose / sticky button. I notice a bracelet on this persons wrist and joke about it not being a super magnet or something and she laughed and said no, but it does use a magnet to hold it together.
I didn't think much of it at the time and ventured back to my office defeated and confused. I am going over the issues with one of my co-workers and mention the machine sleep due to lid closure or button press, then something clicked. We grabbed a spare nametag with a magnet and started waving it around the same model laptop surfaces and sure as shit the screen goes black and it goes to sleep.
The magic spot on this laptop was to the right of the trackpad, the user wore the magnetic jewelry on their right wrist and when they arranged their hands just right it triggered the lid closure sensor which on these models uses a magnet in the lid.
In real life this issue persisted for a few weeks before we figured out what was going on, I thought I was going crazy though when it was happening.
Get a support ticket from one of the staff saying that the screen of their laptop keeps "going black" when they are using the computer. So I set up a time to take a look and ventured away from my desk to see what's going on.
It's worth noting that this is a laptop, less notable is that it is a shared device as different people work this shift, regardless, all the staff that share it are adamant it only happens with this one user. So I asked them to demonstrate, they open a browser and start typing, sure enough after a sentence or two the screen goes black and the machine locks / goes to sleep.
I ask to take a look at the laptop and log back in, open notepad and start banging away on the keyboard like a cracked out chimpanzee, nothing happens. I hit every key on the keyboard, double checked hotkey / function keys, can't get it to happen. Now I had written a small exe for our staff that locks their workstations when unplugging their security keys and killed it just to make sure that wasn't causing issues, nope that's not it.
Then they tell me they even swapped laptops and the problem follows this user... So I blow out the user profile and log them back in and let it sync again, issue still persists. Now I am watching them type like a hawk trying to see if I can spot what key sequence or wizardry is happening to cause this issue.
I can't find any reason that makes sense, when I check the event logs it just says "Machine sleep due to lid closure or button press". Happens on 2 different laptops so it's unlikely to be a faulty lid switch or loose / sticky button. I notice a bracelet on this persons wrist and joke about it not being a super magnet or something and she laughed and said no, but it does use a magnet to hold it together.
I didn't think much of it at the time and ventured back to my office defeated and confused. I am going over the issues with one of my co-workers and mention the machine sleep due to lid closure or button press, then something clicked. We grabbed a spare nametag with a magnet and started waving it around the same model laptop surfaces and sure as shit the screen goes black and it goes to sleep.
The magic spot on this laptop was to the right of the trackpad, the user wore the magnetic jewelry on their right wrist and when they arranged their hands just right it triggered the lid closure sensor which on these models uses a magnet in the lid.
In real life this issue persisted for a few weeks before we figured out what was going on, I thought I was going crazy though when it was happening.