Stupidest Laptop problem...I'm a moron

Just came across the problem that I struggled with and ended up making me feel like a total moron.

Got 2 ASUS B400A Ultrabooks for fancy-pants executives who don't want our standard Lenovo E530.
First one worked great - got it all setup with our standard image.

Second one - the power button wasn't responsive, and the screen keeps turning itself off.
I got frustrated and brought it back to our vendor (down the street) to do a swap for a working unit. Trying to duplicate the problem on their service bench - it works fine (of course).
So, frustrated as hell I take it home for the night to test - worked on it for a half hour or so and it worked fine. So great, it was a weird first power-up issue or something and is resolved now.

Got to work this morning, put it back on my desk - Power button doesn't respond again.
Finally wiggle everything around and get it booted, but it's doing the same weird crap with the screen turning off every time it gets nudged at all.

So it looks like the screen-closed switch is bugging out. Call Asus - they're of no help and promise a callback.

Then, while wiggling it around to figure out where the switch might be, I discovered that if I lift up the back it seems to work properly.

Then - brain explosion : Every time I set it up at my desk I'm putting it on top of the other ultrabook that's already set up.
I take it off the other laptop, and all of a sudden can't replicate the problem.

The problem : The screen uses a magnetic sensor to detect when the laptop is closed, and it was picking it up from the laptop underneath it the whole time.

LOL. Thanks. I needed that.

Wow, haha... shit happens to the best of us

Oh geeze lol They clearly need to desensitize those a bit... And not because some other IT guy might run into a similar experience, but because there are probably any number of situations when a person might set it down on a surface that may either be naturally a magnetic to some degree, or are near enough to a strong magnet. Heck, I have strong neodymiums kicking around my room all over (be it really strong ones from HDDs or little micro-pucks from optical drive laser heads)

I can totally empathize though so good to hear you figured it out! lol

Put it this way - you feel like a moron then what would that make me? I got a good laugh from your story but I bet you I would have never figured it out...lol. That'd make me an imbecile then I guess.

Hahahaha! Glad you figured it out.

That was hilarious.

at least you got it figured out and I would like to thank you for providing us with a chuckle. Don't feel bad it happens to all of us at some point...

To be fair, that is a bit of a design oversight...