Quickly and easily put your monitor into power saving mode.
Do you ever wish you could put your monitor into standby exactly when you want to? Now you can tell your monitor to immediately go into energy saving mode with the click of a button. Monitor Off Utility is a free program that allows you to take control of your monitors built-in energy saving features. You can setup your own custom keyboard shortcuts or setup a shortcut on your desktop or system tray. The utility supports multiple monitors and is very flexible. It even allows you to use a command line interface if you want to incorporate the utility into your own scripts.
Easily turns off all monitors.
Works if VLC is open
Cons
Not portable (but works well with Cameyo)
Summary
Great utility if you need to turn off multiple monitors (inclusing laptop monitors) without sleeping your computer or closing your laptop (handy when you use 2 screens and don't want your desktop icons to be juggled) and if a program is disabling automatic monitor turn-off.
Great Little Free Utility
jainagray
Pros
This is a slick little app. It's nice to be able to turn off your monitor with a hotkey. Also, start your screensaver with another hotkey. Very well behaved. Can lock your workstation with a hotkey, as well. Don't have to use Windows power options.
Cons
None, so far.
Summary
A very useful and easy to use app. Gives you a sense of power :-) It just sits politely in the systray until you need it. You can set a delay before the monitor turns off, so that when you invoke the hotkey, the app shows a countdown, during which you can cancel. Just tap your mouse to bring the monitor up.
Just what I was looking for to turn off my monitors
quadraphonic-2009
Pros
It is easy to setup and configure. This is what I was looking for.
Cons
I can't think of any cons at this time.
Summary
This program is great to leave your computer on while turning off your monitors. You can customize its settings, with keyboard shortcuts, timer and more.