How to turn off the display in Windows 8 without locking or making computer go to sleep?

Solution 1:

I'm using nircmd to turn off my display. You create a shortcut to nircmd.exe and add "monitor off", like this: "D:\Program Files (x86)\nircmd\nircmd.exe" monitor off

You will have to execute this manually every time you want to turn off your display, or you can use the Windows Task Scheduler to run it after some minutes in idle.

Use the 64bit version of nircmd if you are using 64bit Windows 8 / 8.1

Solution 2:

I have tried all of the above, including using nircmd, but below is the only way to turn off the screen without putting the device to sleep:

Look for C:\Windows\System32\scrnsave.scr. Create a shortcut to this on the desktop. Whenever you need to turn off the monitor without putting the device to sleep, double tap on the shortcut. (Using a mouse will not do as the mouse movement will stop the screen saver immediately and turn the screen back on.

It works on my ASUS Vivotab Smart Tablet.