Thinkpad T430 Turn Off Screen without Sleeping?

[wsgwsg]

Hello, just bought a T430 here and I'm loving it. The keyboard is comparable to any desktop and the portability and battery life fit my needs perfectly.

With the old T420, you could adjust the settings so Fn + F3 would turn the screen off without putting the computer to sleep. However, with the new chicklet style keyboard (which is now 6 rows instead of 7), lenovo seems to have made Fn + F3 lock the computer. I can't seem to find any way to turn the screen off without affecting active downloads/music/etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

[burntsushi]

What operating system are you running? If you're running Linux, you should be able to achieve turning off the screen (and nothing else) with DPMS:

xset dpms force standby

[ExJamJus]

That's weird ...

http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/t-series/t430/

The Fn + F3 on the T430 compared to the T420 looks the same ... Do you have Power Manager installed?

[wsgwsg]

Thanks for the quick replies everyone.

burntsushi: I'm runnning Windows 7, the operating system that comes with the computer. I haven't made any changes to it since I've received it.

ExJamJus: If you look closely, you can see that on the new keyboard the function key corresponds to a LOCK icon whereas on the T420, the F3 key has a BATTERY icon on it. I do have power manager, but it doesn't work in the same way as on the T420. Thus, the tutorial on the lenovo site for the T420 doesn't apply.

[CorkyG]

Can you set Power Management so that the screen/display turns off after "n" minutes of inactivity? 

[ExJamJus]

@wsgwsg,

I am looking at the website with the T430 keyboard layout. Look at the "Gallery" area where it shows T430 Function Keys ... It looks exactly like the T420 I have here.

Fn + F2 = Lock
Fn + F3 = Batt
Fn + F4 = Sleep/Hibernate
Fn + F5 = WLAN/BT/WWAN control
Fn + F6 = Webcam and mic
Fn + F7 = Display

Is the website showing a different keyboard layout compared to the T430? (Sorry I personally have not seen a T430 yet).

Also maybe you can set the screensaver to off screen after several minutes or you can use the suggestion by CorkyG?

[nibs Guru · Accepted solution]

If you have PowerManager in the taskbar, then you should be able to right-click on it and choose "Power off display". If PM is not in the taskbar, open it, select "switch to: advanced", goto the options tab, and select "Show Power Manager Gauge in task bar".

[wsgwsg]

thanks nibs. That was what I was looking for... unfortunately, it doesn't seem to do anything on my computer. After clicking on Power off Display, the screen turns off for a fraction of a second and then turns back on without me touching the keys nor the mouse.

I already have the screen power off after a set amount of time, however, I sometimes like to simply turn the screen off temporarily before the timer turns it off to save battery power.

ExJamJus: All the functions that you listed are the same except for:

Fn + F2 = nothing

Fn + F3 = lock

My keyboard seems to be different from the one they have in the T430 gallery. The Fn button as well as all the function icons are White instead of Blue and the ThinkVantage button is Black and has been renamed the Black Button (if my memory serves well).