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October 26, 2006 10:21 PM

Is there a way I can turn my monitors off with a keyboard shortcut?

So I got myself a nice new display, I love it, it's great, and it plays nice with my old one in a dual screen setup. My problem is that the display is so big that I find myself watching a movie before going to bed, and sometimes I get tired and just want to turn the screen off from my wireless keyboard.

Are there any programs out there that can allow me to map my logitech wireless keyboard so that I can turn of my monitors by pressing a key combo?

Thanks!

Imran

posted by CXImran to computers & internet (7 comments total)

From this page, if you can map a button to a command, try the command:

RUNDLL32 PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState

...which would suspend your system, which is kinda what you want. There's probably a way to execute RUNDLL32 with some option to simply put the display to sleep without suspending the whole system, but that would require more googling. Good luck.
posted by odinsdream at 10:34 PM on October 26, 2006

I use a combination of Wizmo and WinKey to do this. Winkey can run arbitrary commands from a windows-key shortcut, and Wizmo has a command-line switch that will shut off your display.
posted by yarmond at 10:37 PM on October 26, 2006

Theres no way you are going to be able to turn OFF your monitor unless you kill the power. I dont believe there are any monitors that you can interface with your computer to power off.

The previous two solutions don't turn off your monitor, they kill the video feed and your monitor sleeps/powersaves by itself. (Does that solve your issue?)
posted by mphuie at 1:21 AM on October 27, 2006

Theres no way you are going to be able to turn OFF your monitor unless you kill the power.

Since the mid '90s or so, there have been standard VESA signals supported by most monitors, for putting the monitor into suspended or off mode. Modern DVI based displays have similar features, though I think they have dedicated pins.

There may be a small amount of current running through your monitor when in "off mode," but the remote power circuitry might be powered by the signal pins themselves.
posted by b1tr0t at 1:58 AM on October 27, 2006

Theres no way you are going to be able to turn OFF your monitor unless you kill the power.

A "Smart Power Strip" will actually drop the power out from under the monitors if you suspend your PC.
posted by krisjohn at 2:48 AM on October 27, 2006

Right, I was looking to put the monitor into powersave mode.

Sorry for any confusion...
posted by CXImran at 6:17 AM on October 27, 2006

Nircmd, from Nir Software is a freeware utility that can do lots of things from the command line, including turning the monitor off. You could create a shortcut on your desktop containing the command line

nircmd.exe monitor off

and assign a keyboard shortcut key to it.
posted by llamateur at 11:05 AM on October 27, 2006 [1 favorite]