A typical desktop computer has a separate display screen (also called a monitor) that you attach to the rest of the computer cabinet through video cables and a power cable. These display screens come with a power button of its own and you can use this power button to turn off the monitor or turn it back on as you want. But the notebook computers usually do not come with any designated power button to turn off the monitor. But you can use some features of Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 to turn off the screen whenever you want.
If you want to turn off the monitor using the power button of the notebook, then you can change Windows settings in the following manner:
- Press Win+R to open the Run dialog.
- Type control powercfg.cpl in the Run dialog and press Enter.
- Select Choose what the power button does from the window that opens.
- Select Turn off the display for the action When I press the power button.
- Click on the Save changes button to save the settings.
After these changes, you can quick-press the power button in your computer and it will turn off the screen. But this is not hard off like in the desktop computer screens. This is only soft off which means that you can move the mouse pointer or press keys on the keyboard to turn the computer screen back on.
If you do not want to use the power button in your computer to turn the screen off or on, then you can use a simple program to do the exact the same thing. We have previously discussed how this can be achieved and how you can assign a hotkey to this program so that you can turn off the screen by pressing the hotkey. You can read more about this from – Turn off the Monitor Using Hotkey in Windows.