Closing the laptop lid does not turn off the screen

Device model: HP Elite x2 1012 G1 (I have three of these). I have Gnome Tweaks running on all three. I have the laptop “not suspend” when closing the lid on all three as well.

On one of these devices, when I close the lid, the screen fails to turn off. In fact, it blinks once (as if it turns off for a split second), and then the screen stays on. The screen stays on unless I press/click to “suspend.” Sometimes the screen desktop will go black, however, the screen backlight is still lit (and I can see the cursor).

HOWEVER, if I have an external monitor connected, and I close the lid, the lid will turn off, and the external screen will be the primary (as expected)

I have three, exact same models of this tablet, all running Fedora. The other two laptop/tablets will normally turn off the screen when I “close the lid” (no external monitor either). All three devices have the following settings for “screen lock”:

  • List item Blank screen delay: 15 mnutes
  • List item Automatic screen lock: on
  • List item Automatic screen lock delay “screen turns off”
  • List item Show notifications on lock screen: on

I’ve tried closing the lid in Windows, and the screen turns off with no issue. So, I know for fact it is not a hardware issue.

How can I fix it so that the screen turns off when the laptop/tablet lid is closed? How can I see if it’s a driver issue and if I can reinstall the display or sensor drivers? Or, how can I reset all my settings to default (hoping to find the culprit setting that’s causing this)? Or, what’s the easiest way to reinstall fedora?

Are they all three at the very same firmware level?

They are. It’s practically all identical parts and models. Some things vary (features such as finger scanner, SIM card slot, and etc.)

Hopefully you don’t have to do that. Anyway, between F33 and F35 there was a chage proposal that went through regarding power management. It has changed on Fedora Linux, and this may be where some tweaking is required by you for the misbehaving laptop in the group. Also, as far as laptops go in my experience, same model is not equal to identical components used, they often have alternatives for different functions which could even be dictated by supply at the time of build. Sew power-profiles-daemon for more info regarding power profiles and how power management is done.

Maybe you could check cat /etc/UPower.conf and cat /etc/systemd/logind.conf.

Especially with /etc/systemd/logind.conf, you could force the system to sleep if there any app run on the system that inhibited the suspend by uncomment LidSwitchIgnoreInhibited=yes.