Turn off monitor on del Vostro 1500 while laptop in use?

Since I'm blind and use screen reading software I don't need to use my laptop's monitor and it's nothing but a battery drain. Is there a way to turn off the monitor on a del Vostro 1500 laptop while I'm using it? The only option I've found is to have it power off while the laptop is idle.

Solution 1:

Fn-DownArrow (type several times) will lower the backlight. That's a major source of power drain.

Other Dells I've had have supported turning off the LCD with a different Fn key, but I don't have a Vostro 1500 in front of me to see if that works.

Fn-F8 (blue label is CRT/LCD) should switch to external display, but I'm not sure it'll stick with that if there is no actual external display. It might be that an enterprising friend with a VGA connector and a soldering iron could make a stub that looks enough like an external monitor to encourage your LCD to stay off.

Solution 2:

Are you using the keyboard and trackpad? If not, you can set windows not to go to sleep when you close the lid. I'm not sure what will happen with the display at that point.

Solution 3:

I know this is 1 1/2 yrs ago, but for those still looking for a solution for this. I've read you need only to connect an external keyboard and mouse and close the lid before it fully boots up or was that shortly after. And that should reroute your graphics to your display.