Mac Book Pro randomly goes to sleep while sitting on my lap

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harley_2009 Author

Level 1

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Mac Book Pro randomly goes to sleep while sitting on my lap

My new MacBook Pro would randomly go to sleep as it sat on my lap. If I tipped it up or sideways, it would sometimes come back on and sometimes not. To make a long story short, I read in one of the topics that if you stack computers, the magnets in one may cause the other to go to sleep. I carry a money clip with a magnet in my front pocket. After reading about other magnets causing the computer to ge to sleep, I removed my money clip and have had no problems since.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 10, 2011 8:47 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 10, 2011 9:05 AM in response to harley_2009

I've heard horror stories about those money clips causing troubles for some computers. In one instance, a user had gone through a number of hard drives in a very short span of time, turns out the magnet from the clip was interferring with the hard drive and causing serious issues, destroying three or four different hard drives.

Moral of the story: Avoid a magnetic money clip if you can, or at least take it out of your pocket.

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Answer 2

eww

Level 9

53,028 points

Feb 10, 2011 9:50 AM in response to harley_2009

Just out of curiosity, why does a money clip contain a magnet? What iron or steel object might one want to stick it to, or stick to it?

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Answer 3

harley_2009 Author

Level 1

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Feb 10, 2011 10:44 AM in response to eww

The flap that holds the bills has a magnet to hold in bills place.

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Answer 4

Feb 17, 2011 12:35 PM in response to harley_2009

Thank You!! I have been thinking there was a problem with my Unibody MBP for ages now - turns out the bracelet I wore on my right wrist (which has a magnetic clasp) was hovering over the magnet and causing the laptop to try to sleep! Because I don't always wear the bracelet, it was only happening sometimes.

This has been bugging me for ages! Thank you so much - the bracelet is now on my other wrist - and no problems at all!

Thanks again!

SJ

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Answer 5

johnours

Level 1

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Apr 1, 2011 12:33 PM in response to harley_2009

Confirmed here. I just bought a magnetic money clip on a trip last weekend. For the first time since I was working with my MBP on my lap and it started to exhibit the exact same behavior: randomly going to sleep and sometimes coming back when I tipped the computer.

Money clip is now on the desk and the laptop is no longer misbehaving. I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years.

Many thanks!

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Answer 6

smarte01

Level 1

0 points

Jun 6, 2011 5:05 PM in response to harley_2009

My Macbook Pro was acting very strangely one morning as it would not come out of sleep (just like me sometimes!) unless I rebooted the laptop. But then would fall to sleep immediately after the reboot sequence.

I had taken out a wine "ager" which is a big magnet that suppose to age a young wine a minutes...! The "ager" looks like a big hockey puck and was left on the kitchen table.

Well thanks for the this blog about magnets close to a Macbook Pro, I finally realized that this wine "ager" was making the laptop to go to sleep.

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Answer 7

Beerob

Level 1

0 points

Dec 10, 2011 6:47 PM in response to harley_2009

yup...just left the apple store...and my friend happened to be my genuis for the day....we were discussing my random "narcolepsy" of the macbook and I read other threads where a corrupt pfile was to blame. then I googled trying to find it to show him and we came across this....it dawned on me I too had just started using a new money clip and YUP....that seems to be the problem. Put the clip to the sensor where my left pocket would sit and sure enough it went ZZzzZZzzZZzz...thanks for the post.

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Answer 8

TELIIK

Level 1

1 points

Apr 8, 2012 3:54 PM in response to harley_2009

yup i just had that problem, thanks i was really scared something was wrong

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