I shouldn't have posted this but hey, let's kill this topic once and for all. The VGA cable or DVI cable will not make the laptop think there's an external display source at the other end simply because its just a straight parallel cable. No connection on the other end to link which ever cable or colour to one another. So no different if you got that cable or not. There's 2 pin which you can use a paperclip to trick the motherboard to say there's something on the other end but you will need to know what you are doing for a start.
Turning off the display does increase the battery usage but in modern computers or laptops, it probably give you the max 30nmins extra. So benefit is not as much as extra an hour or 2. Battery are drain by how you use your PC or laptop including how often your harddrive spin, your DVD drive, your CPU itself which process info and how often you even touch your keyboard etc... And list goes on. The best yo ucan do is to lower the brightness of your display or just get an external battery or just power it without the battery around. For any further discussion about this, just drop me an email and not through the list. -------- ---------------------- regards Thomas N. Chan -----Original Message----- From: David [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, 7 January 2011 4:21 AM To: Darren Harris; 'Sandra Fouts'; 'Rhonda Partain'; [email protected] Subject: Re: windows 7 help Shutting off your display completely, would not be adviseable. Just think what would happen, if your computer hangs, and you need sighted helpif your screen reader stops working, and you need sighted assistance. The screen shut off, will leave your sighted assistant just as helplessly lost as you. And, since you don't know if your computer has locked itself, it would not even help to have remembered the key sequence for going to the controlpanel or the like to turn the screen on again. Some years ago, one person adviced the following, which I never have had the chance of testing myself, so it will have to stand on its own. If anyone have the chance of testing it, and come back with the results, it would be greatly appreciated. What was suggested, was to get hold of an external monitor plug. No cable, no monitor, simply just the plugg itself. It might be obtained from your local dealers scrape yard, or the like; and would be of very low cost. The person that suggested it to me, claimed that the laptop would recognize that a plugg had been inserted, thinking this would mean an external monitor was operative, and simply switch off the internal laptop screen. Hmm, well, only remember that most laptops have a setting, that will tell whether the internal screen has to be turned off, when an external screen is connected; or to leave the computer in a dual-monitor mode, on which this workaround would have no effect at all. Another user suggested for you to keep the lid of your laptop closed. I do find it in its place here, to put out a tiny warning. This due to a couple of reasons. First, my old laptop actually had its fan intake located right above the keyboard. This would mean, closing the lid, would block for the fan intake, hence causing little or no cooling of your computer. And, even when this fan location is not the case, modern laptops tend to develop quite an amount of heat. They have been engineered the way, that the big surface of the keyboard area, that will be exposed when the lid is open, serves as a cooling area. In other words, the 'close the lid' idea, has to be on your own risk of overheating your system. Specially so, if you are running any software or process, that uses excessive resources. If you try it out, and find your fan to speed up, or your computer to be unusually heated, I'd suggest for you immediately to find another way of saving battery life. Not only can overheating your system cause fatal errors on the system itself, but it also will shorten your battery's lifetime. First your battery might have a shorter usage-time this very charge, but repeatedly overheating your system or battery, will cause chemical reactions in your battery cells, that will shorten it's overall lifetime. Some laptops have their sensoring switch for the lid accesible. You will feel it as a tiny PIN-like thing, coming up through the top of your laptop's keyboard area. Usually its located near the one side. If your computer has this construction, placing a small piece of tape over this switch, will cause it to be pressed down. The computer now will think the lid has been shut, and hence turn off the screen. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darren Harris" <[email protected]> To: "'David'" <[email protected]>; "'Sandra Fouts'" <[email protected]>; "'Rhonda Partain'" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2011 7:12 PM Subject: windows 7 help > Hi all, > > Is there a way I can turn off completely the display on my laptop? I would > like to conserve power where ever I can and the display does take up a lot > I > am guessing. > > Many thanks. > > If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender > only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is > related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to > [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. > > GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can > manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv. > If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv. If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
