It seems that if strong enough magnet is waved across the face, just below the screen, it causes a reboot. I suspect the same is true for iPhones.

OK, Looks like this is the equivalent of pulling the plug on a pc. I had the Kindle reader open and the book, I was reading, reverted to where I had started it from earlier.

So...you're going around waving strong magnets in front of all your CE devices? Any particular reason?

Magnets induce currents into nearby wiring. Bigger magnet = Bigger field = Bigger current. Electronics don't like interference. Don't do it.

What Dignan said. Why are you doing this? This is one of those "Doctor doctor, it hurts when I do this! So don't do that.." moments.

It wasn't done delibratly, not the first time anyway. I had this small ND magnet .5x.75x.032" and dropped it. It bounced and landed on the face left of the home button. That was all it took.

Try putting it on your tv screens and hard drives. Let us know what happens.

Yep, no surprise. What you're doing is causing the inductors in the switching power supplies to become saturated and hence the PSU can no longer meet the current demands placed on it = brownout.

This will happen with anything that doesn't have magnetic shielding; EMI shields tend to be stainless steel which doesn't work for magnetic fields... careful though, it could be possible to cause damage depending on how the device you're provoking is designed. Those magnets are freakishly strong!

Hugo

Good to know that this "reset" is not intended function.

My google search turned up a lot of posts about a particular leather case with magnetic closures...