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More of a curiosity than a technical question. I have a Dell Vostro 3460 laptop, and I just noticed it has two magnets embedded on both lower right and left corners near the USB ports and headphone jacks. They are strong enough to hold a metalic pen or a small keychain, and it's not an electromagnet, since it stays on when I turn the laptop off. The cover is aluminum, so it's not like it was magnetized by accident either.

That's really weird and I've never seen anything like that in other laptops. Is that a feature, a side-effect of some internal component, or something wrong with my laptop?

magicandre1981
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Pedro Werneck
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2 Answers2

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Those are the magnets in the speakers, which happen to be located in the front corners on that model.

Dell Vostro 3460 speakers

More info/image source: "Why does my laptop attract metal?"

Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
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    Wow... that's embarrassingly obvious now. I completely forgot that. – Pedro Werneck Jun 27 '14 at 16:33
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    Fun fact: many laptops rely on magnets to detect if the lid is closed (it used to be done with a mechanical switch, but these are often unsightly and tend to break). In this instance, the magnets in the speaker could also be detected by a magnetic sensor hidden inside the frame around the display. – sleblanc Jun 27 '14 at 19:14
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    Sounds like a good way to wipe a floppy, Jazz, Zip or similar disk without even realizing. Scary - I still work with such media occasionally... – thkala Jun 27 '14 at 19:59
  • On a slightly related note, the Dell Latitude 13 has some magnets in the screen. Apparently to prevent it from opening by accident. – kasperd Jun 27 '14 at 23:44
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Actually those magnets are in the palm rest, there is also magnets at the top of the screen, i believe that they are for keeping the screen closed

Jmb
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