Switching off your laptop or CRT monitors when not in use has many benefits. This will allow your monitor to cool down, which will lengthen it’s life, save electricity which will eventually save you some hard earned money.

Windows has Power Options settings which can turn off the monitor after some x amount of minutes when your computer is idle but setting a time like a minute or two will eventually annoy you by turning off when you do something like reading online. So the best method is to manually turn off the screen. Some laptops comes with function keys for this but it’s not available in all models.

So to help you out, I have listed 4 simple tools here that you can use to manually turn off your monitor.

Turn Off LCD

I will start off with ‘Turn Off LCD.’ It’s a simple program that does just what it’s name says.

Download and save the application on your computer. Now whenever you want to turn off your screen just double click on the “Turn Off LCD.exe” executable file. That’s it!

To turn on the screen again, hit any key on your keyboard or move your mouse.

Download: Turn Off LCD

Monitor Off

Monitor Off is a utility which allows you to turn off your monitor with a hotkey. While doing that it can also lock your computer. A useful option if you don’t want anyone snooping around your computer while you are away.

The program runs from the system tray, so alternatively you can also use the system tray icon as a toggle switch to turn off the display.

You can also set a short delay before the “Turn Off” action is executed, allowing you to abort the operation if required. Default delay is of 10 seconds.

Monitor Off is available both as an installer and as a standalone program. It works on all Windows versions.

Download: Monitor Off

MonitorES

MonitorES is another tiny utility that allows you to turn your monitor off with a shortcut, but it can do more than that.

MonitorES can automatically pause your media player, set your IM status status to “Away” or any custom message, and also mute your computer volume while you are away. And when you return, it will restore everything back to the way it was.

You can know the full list of supported media players and IMs from the link below.

Download: MonitorES

Wizmo

The final utility is Wizmo.

Wizmo is a command based application. So to make stuff happen, you’ll need to create a shortcut and add command to it.

Download the executable file and store it somewhere. Next, right-click it and choose ‘Create shortcut’, which should give you a new shortcut file named “wizmo.exe – Shortcut”. Right-click this new shortcut file, and choose ‘Properties’. Under the Shortcut tab, you should see a text box labeled ‘Target’. There after the full filename path, enter a single space and add the command ” -monoff ” to turn off your monitor.

To add a custom icon to the shortcut click on “Change icon..” Next browse and open C:\Windows\system32\imageres.dll. Select an icon of your choice and hit ‘OK’.

Now you can place this shortcut anywhere you want and all you need to do is double click to turn off your monitor.

This is just one of the many features Wizmo offers, you can also use it to shutdown, hibernate, eject disc, mute volume and lots more. Visit the link below to know the full list of commands you can use.

Download: Wizmo