I want to turn off only the monitor while keeping the PC fully awake and running. The keyboard should remain completely functional in the background, including typing, macro keys, multimedia keys, and shortcuts, but keyboard activity must not turn the display back on. Moving the mouse should be the only event allowed to wake the monitor.
I have already tried disabling "Allow this device to wake the computer" for the keyboards in Device Manager and using powercfg to disable keyboard wake, but those settings do not prevent Windows from restoring the display when it detects keyboard hardware activity. I also tried AutoHotkey v1 scripts that send the display-power command, but keyboard input still causes the monitor to switch back on before the script can handle it. UAC is disabled, and I am specifically wondering whether a registry setting, lower-level keyboard hook, or another Windows technique can separate keyboard processing for background applications from keyboard-triggered display wake behavior.
2 Answers
A black AutoHotkey overlay can make the screen appear off, but it does not actually power down the monitor. It can cover every display with a black always-on-top window and remove itself when the mouse moves or a button is clicked. That may work as a visual workaround, but it will not provide the OLED lifespan or energy savings of turning off the panel itself.
Windows generally does not expose a separate control for “keyboard input still works, but keyboard activity cannot wake only the display.” Once the monitor is turned off through the normal display-power mechanism, input events can cause Windows to restore the display before an AutoHotkey script or regular hook can intervene. Device wake settings and powercfg usually control waking the system from a sleep state, not this display-wake behavior.
A more practical approach is to disable and re-enable the monitor output itself, then use mouse input to restore it. That changes the display state rather than relying on Windows’ normal screen-off wake handling, although a suitable utility or custom program may be needed, especially with multiple monitors.
I have considered a black desktop or overlay, but my main goal is to reduce power use and avoid unnecessary wear on an OLED panel, so I need the display hardware to actually enter its off state.