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I want to be able to 'put the display to sleep' on one of my two monitors when it isn't needed, so it doesn't distract me or use unnecessary power.

Ideally, the display would be asleep, but the OS would remain in dual-monitor mode, so I could still have a variety of windows open in the sleeping monitor's display space, which would mean I wouldn't have to keep switching between single- and dual-monitor modes.

That said, I'd also consider a solution that made it easy to toggle between single- and dual-monitor modes without navigating several system menus.

OS is Windows 7.

Thanks!

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When you say 'not manually' you mean 'without physically powering off the monitor'? – Shinrai Apr 8 '11 at 21:48
So you want it to do it automatically? Like actually shut the monitor off or just stop displaying to it so it goes to sleep? Also there needs to be some kind of condition for this to happen it won't just magically turn off when you think your ready for one to shut down. Could you please provide some more details? – Kyle Apr 8 '11 at 21:49
Using Nircmd (nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html) you can turn off a monitor via command line (but I do not tested with a desktop, only with a laptop). But I don't know how to change monitors with a command line or to choose only one to turn off. I also think if you only switch from 2-monitors to 1-monitor (like hitting fn+f4 from a laptop) the screen with no signal will enter in a standby mode after some time ("almost" turned off). – kokbira Apr 8 '11 at 23:37
Wizmo (grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm) also has a way to turn off all monitors... – kokbira Apr 8 '11 at 23:42
@Shinrai--yes, without physically powering it off. I want to "put the display to sleep," so that it doesn't distract me or consume power when I don't need it. – Stew Jun 15 '11 at 12:52
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2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

I was looking to do the same exact thing. I have a 42" HDTV as my primary monitor and just set up my 24" Samsung as my secondary monitor off to my left side but when I watch a movie or play a game it can be distracting to have it sitting there glowing.

Just found the solution, Ultramon. You can get it here http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

There are other software apps that work similarly but I haven't tried those. With Ultramon the solution is simple, you can rightclick on the Ultramon icon in your taskbar to see a predefined list of actions. One of those actions is "Disable Secondary". You can either just select it from there or map a key combo to it (which is what I did) and now you have the ability to just turn off your secondary monitor with a click, or combo key press. This effectively allows you to switch from dual display mode to single and back again immediately. My second monitor just blacks out into power saving mode when I use my key combo and restores when I activate dual display with the same key combo when I am ready to use it again.

Works perfectly.

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UltraMon rocks. :) – techie007 Jul 16 '11 at 15:30
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up vote 3 down vote

Press Windows + P - you will be prompted to choose your display mode from single, extend, etc and so can be used to disable your secondary monitor.

I see you wanted to keep your open windows; this still keeps them open, but it does bring them all to one display if you enable single monitor mode. However at least this approach will let you shut down the second glowing distraction when it is not in use.

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I recently switched jobs and no longer have two monitors, so I can't test this. If someone else confirms that this works, I'll choose it as the answer, since it requires no additional software. – Stew Oct 14 '11 at 15:50
Pressing windows+p on my Lenovo does nothing. In the case of this laptop FN-f7 does that. Not sure the windows+p is standard. – Stephanie Page Nov 14 '11 at 15:27
i can confirm that this indeed works as said in the answer here. win + p and then you can choose between computer only, duplicate, extend and projector only modes. – b0x0rz Dec 24 '11 at 9:04
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