[SOLVED] - Screen stays on when lid closed on Thinkpad W530

[MajedS]

Hi everyone!

Greetings from London, UK.

I have a Thinkpad W530 (Product No: 24473F8 and bios 2.76) with 32Gb RAM and dual 1Tb Samsung SSDs running Windows 11.

I use this as a demo machine where I can spin up a couple of VMs at a time and have no issues with normal day to day use.

When I close the lid, the screen stays on so I am guessing there is some issue with its switch mechanism. I have slowly slid a magnet all around the screen and base areas but have not been able to trigger the screen to switch off.

Does anyone know how the screen/lid mechanism for switching the screen off works on this machine and how I might be able to fix this?

[TPFanatic]

The sensor lives in the middle of the left edge of the lid when facing the LCD. Either that or whatever magnet belongs opposite it in the palmrest could be dislodged.

[MajedS]

Thank you TPFanatic for confirming where the sensor lived which allowed me to determine using a magnet that indeed this was a sensor issue.

Further digging led me to this post - https://forums.lenovo.com/topic/view/1306/5086774

So, out with the lower ram chips, remove the keyboard and find that the connector from the screen was not fully home on one side.

Whilst in there, vacuumed the inevitable dust and put it back together to be greeted with a dead laptop. Remove the ram chips and it boots. This is when that little voice starts saying "You should have used an earth strap"!

I install one chip and it boots... Install the second and now it boots as if nothing was wrong Grrr...

Screen now switches off when lid is closed - yay!