Both are excellent questions. Answers:

- Can't find anything in the BIOS which controls this.

- NMEA strings continue to spit out on the com port when the lid is closed. It's just that the software doesn't consider the strings to be valid located data points after that happens. Not sure what exactly is failing about the strings; I'm not parsing the strings in detail yet. It could be that the GPS chip simply loses its satellite fix, or it could be that the satellite fix is OK but the timestamps are wacky, or something like that. But it does give me food for investigation.