Also just being liked by the interviewer. For my current job I had an interview of about 90min, and basically just had a rather one-sided chat with the two guys. They seemed to like me, just let me talk and the next day I had the contract draft in my email.
I certainly did not excel at anything during the interview.
Asking obviously doesn’t hurt, but usually the laptops aren’t even technically property of the company but leased and given back after some years.
And even if your company actually owns the laptops, there’s likely a bureaucratic nightmare lurking because a laptop with potentially critical information on it is missing.
I know of a company where the IT guy “accidentally” sent a mail to everyone that the old hardware is sitting in a hallway waiting for the recycler.