When we work with a laptopUnlike most desktop computers, the screen itself is a built-in component of the computer. This makes it much more dependent on the equipment as such and its operation. It could be said that, in front of a desktop PC screen, here that component loses a good part of its autonomy. Hence, in order to control it a little more, we have to use some tricks of the operating system itself, as is the case.
And it is that being able to turn this screen off or on independently from the rest of the laptop, such as CPU or disk drives, can provide us with some important advantages. Among these, we can undoubtedly highlight the autonomy of the PC, since these screens are one of the components that most battery spend. In addition, we will be able to have greater privacy, especially if we work surrounded by many people who can see the content of what we do at all times.
Therefore, as we can see, the possibility of being able to turn off the screen of our laptop independently from the rest of the team can be very useful. In addition, this type of action will directly influence both personal privacy and the operation and autonomy of the equipment itself. It is precisely for all this that we are going to give you a series of useful solutions below if you want to carry this out.
Turn off when you close the lid and keep it running
Another of the functions that we can take advantage of in this same sense is the possibility of turning off the laptop screen when closing the lid. As a general rule, when carrying out this action that we are commenting on, what we do is that the equipment turns off or goes into suspension. However, that is not what really interests us in certain circumstances.
For example, it may be the case that we have connected the PC to a television via HDMI to watch a movie or a series. In this case, among other similar uses, since we already have the image in large format on the television, the one on the laptop screen actually bothers us. That is why a functionality of Windows 10 It allows us to turn off the screen by lowering the lid, but the equipment continues to work. To do this, the first thing we do is click with the right mouse button on the battery icon on the system toolbar. This is the one next to the clock, for example.
So here we select the entry of Energy options, while in the left part of the window that appears, we find Choose the behavior of closing the lid. We click on it and we will see two drop-down lists where we customize the behavior of the equipment when lowering the aforementioned cover. This is something that we can specify both if we have the laptop connected to the mains, as if it is running on battery. In this way we will only have to select the option called Do nothing.
Windows + L: the basic keyboard shortcut
Another way to turn off the screen and let Windows continue running, without being suspended, is to use the Windows + L keyboard shortcut. What this shortcut does is block the session of our PC so that, in order to use it again, we have to enter your password (or Windows Hello fingerprint, PIN, or facial recognition) to unlock it and continue working with it.
By pressing this keyboard shortcut, the session is blocked and we will see the login screen. If we do not interact with the computer, it will automatically turn off the screen as an energy saving measure. But the computer will continue to work as it will not be suspended. This method helps us perfectly to turn off the screen without having to close it. But, if we close it and we have not deactivated the previous option, the PC will be suspended.
Programs to disconnect the screen
But there are times when what we want is to be able to turn off the screen while the equipment continues to function normally, as quickly as possible. There may be times, when, for example, we listen to music or the radio from our laptop, that we do not see the need for the screen to be on. On other occasions, we may like to quickly turn off the screen when someone approaches and does not want us to see what we are doing, without having to lower the screen. For this there are some applications that we will review below.
Some of these applications can be launched directly or from the system tray and others offer keyboard shortcuts for initiation. And it is that we must take into account that one of the general objectives of these programs is that we can use them as quickly as possible. It does not make much sense that we want to turn off only the screen at a certain moment and have to start moving through endless menus. Serve as an example that we want all screen content at that time it is not in view of anyone sitting next to or behind us. As it is easy to imagine the speed in these cases to hide on the laptop screen, it is something basic.
Hence, we can use some of these programs directly from the system bar through an icon, or through a custom keyboard shortcut, as we mentioned before. If our keyboard includes an application to manage and configure the use of certain keys, we can associate these applications to make the process much faster, especially when we don’t want third parties to see what we are doing on our computer.
Turn Off Monitor
It is a tool that allows us to turn off the screen of our laptop in three different ways. Its use is very simple and we only have to download a compressed file from its . Once downloaded, we unzip it and a folder will be created with a file called Turn Off Monitor.exe. If we double click on it, our computer screen will turn off immediately. Therefore, we can choose to create a shortcut of this executable. To do this, right-click on it and select the “Create shortcut” option. Once created, we can leave it on our desk so that we always have it at hand and we can quickly turn off the screen of our laptop.
This program also supports turning off multiple monitors connected to a computer. Once the monitor is turned off, it can be turned on by providing any type of user input, such as mouse movement or pressing any key on the keyboard.
If we have a laptop that runs on battery, this program allows us to significantly increase battery life simply by turning off the monitor when it is not necessary, or while we perform background tasks, such as a virus scan, listening to music or downloading a huge file. In the event that our PC display device cannot be turned off due to some technical reason, then using Turn Off Monitor software, it shows us a screen on white to avoid being dazzled by the light emitted by the monitor.
The best
From here we will have the opportunity to control several monitors simultaneously for their shutdown. The functions available in the application allow us to significantly increase the autonomy of laptops.
Worst
The user interface that this solution offers us is too basic and we miss more advanced options.
Turn Off Screen
This simple application will also allow us to quickly turn off the screen of our laptop. All we have to do is access the Turn Off Screen.bat file, which barely occupies 179 kilobytes. If we run it directly, the screen of our laptop will turn off automatically, although it takes a couple of seconds longer than the previous application. For faster access, it is also recommended to create a shortcut and leave it close at hand on our desktop.
In favor
We will be able to take advantage of the advantages of this program that barely consumes computer resources. It perfectly fulfills its task and it is also an open source project.
Against
The fluidity of its operation is somewhat slower than that found in other similar proposals.
Screen Off
It is a tremendously small application with which we can turn off the screen of our laptop with just one click and that we can from its website. It’s very fast using the Visual Basic SendMessage command to send system commands that take care of turning off the screen. For its use it is not necessary to download any version of the .NET Framework or to install it. This tool comes in .exe format like the previous ones, so that it can be executed quickly, leaving it on the desktop as a shortcut is recommended.
This application is completely lightweight at just 13KB and does not use a batch command. To turn off the screen, use a Visual Basic SendMessage command. Once the screen is turned off, we can turn it back on simply by moving the mouse or touching the screen if it is touch screen. ScreenOff doesn’t have a graphical user interface and works in the background, so it can be useful to have it to help us save energy, especially if our computer runs on battery power. In addition, it is portable, so it does not require installation and can be used from external storage devices.
Pros
If something characterizes this software solution, it is the speed with which it carries out the task with the screen. It does not require additional software elements for its correct operation.
cons
On some occasions we may miss some configuration parameters of the program.
BlackTop
It is another simple application that will allow us to turn off the screen of our laptop while it continues to work. We can download it from . Unlike the previous options, BlackTop does require a quick installation. Once installed we can turn off the screen of our laptop through a fast keyboard combination Ctrl + Alt + B. To reactivate the screen, we just have to press the ESC key.
Once installed, BlackTop will sit silently in the system tray. It will not bother us with any popup messages or other types of notifications. As we have mentioned we can turn off the monitor with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + B, but nevertheless we will not be able to manually reconfigure these hotkeys, so we will have to settle for the preset options. Also, right-clicking on the application icon from the system tray allows us to run the tool at Windows startup or disable this particular option and exit the program.
With this operating system that we have just shown, as we mentioned before, we were able to have immediate control over the screen. All we have to do is make use of the specified key combination so that it turns off instantly…
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