Turning Off Cinema Display without putting the Mac to sleep
 

I would love to have a possibility to turn off a Cinema Display, means having it in the mode like when the computer sleeps - but with the Computer running.

Or when you have two Cinema displays to turn one of the two off, the only way now (as far as i know) is to pull the plug on one of them.

Sometimes, when watching DVD for example it can be really annoying that the second display is on too.

and having to split the VRAM to power two displays can be a pain too sometimes.

so - is there a way, could someone here code something to do that?
is there already an application i'm not aware of?

i don't want to have to turn off the computer everytime i want to unplug or plug the second display. and doing that while the computer is running doesn't sound very pleasant for the hardware as well.

any help will be greatly appreciated.
thanks in advance

hmmm
 

are you guys angry with me because of this here , or does really nobody know how to do that ?
:confused:

I never allow my computer or hard drives sleep, but I do allow my monitor to sleep.

Open System Preferences, select Energy Saver. Select "never" for "put this computer to sleep." Check "put this monitor to sleep" and select a time. Uncheck "put hard drives to sleep."

I know this works for a system with one monitor. I have no idea how it would work with two monitors since I've never had that pleasure.

thanks, vickishome

this of course works with two monitors as well, but in my case it doesn't really help because i want to work with my computer ...

i just want to turn one of the two displays off (or sleeping or whatever) so i don't have that "wall of light" in front of me all the time.

i can't really afford two of these beauties as well, but now i have them here and i don't want to hurt them by plugging them in and out and in and out and in and ...

thanks again, let's see if someone knows what i could do...

You cannot turn the power off to them, you can only let the OS sleep them, configurable in the Energy Saver prefpane ("Put the display to sleep blah blah"), just as vicikishome described.

... i know .

that's exactly my problem.
that's why i was asking - because i discovered that you can't do that.

so i should have explained my problem better i think.

but is there a way you could tell the graphics card to turn off the power of one display ?

or just not send any output to the display ?


this is what my system profiler tells me :
so my guess would be that you could tell the graphics card to just forget about one of the two ...

but i'm not a Mac programmer so i can't do it.


thanks for your help - i guess i have to ask some "real" programmer and hope that it won't be too expensive ...

make a curtain, use a thick black cloth, umbrella, sunglasses, etc....??? :D

:cool: i know that sounds really spoiled ...
and i should be über-happy to have that "wall of light" in front of me ...

and i am.

but still it would be great if i could sometimes turn one of them off.

curtain (or a hood) is not such a bad idea but then it eats up 64 MB of my VRAM to shine in the dark - so i guess i still need an (better) answer...

have a great time everybody
:D

I agree that we ought to be able to turn off a monitor without engaging any other feature at all -- a power switch for a monitor should be just that, a power switch. To avoid confusing veteran Mac users who are accustomed to the Apple design, however, this "actual power switch" should be on the back, out of sight. Only we geeks who really care about it would want it; we can reach our lazy arms around to the back.

It's nice that the "power button" on my Cinema display puts the computer to sleep, but it's not nice that it's labeled with a standard, industries-wide graphic symbol that means "on or off switch", because it's not actually an on/off switch.

I completely agree with that.

very good - now we have / are a little "lobby group" already ...
;)
now we just have to do our "lobbying" and hope that someone (Apple ?) does something about it ...

thanks for your feedback.

o.k. - i sent mine ...
(but unfortunately i DON'T have a good record of beeing heard @ Apple... ;) )

and of course it's very unlikely that they change the design of the cinema display - there should be new displays out very soon anyway.

but it shouldn't be too hard to implement a software on/off switch for individual displays in the "monitor control panel".

they have the "arrangement" tab, where you can drag around the displays to match the real situation on your desk.
there should be a checkbox on each to make the display "online" or "offline". (http://developer.apple.com/Documenta...ger/index.html)

aren't there any 3rd party software developers here who want to solve this ?

would be great and i'd buy you a beer or two (or pay the shareware fee - whatever you like ...)

yellow, THANK YOU for that link! I searched for it today and gave up.

[ edit ] ok - i saw only now that you were thanking yellow for his link ...
so this post is rather obsolete [ /edit ]

you're very welcome ...

(and it would be even better if you have searched for that because you're trying to solve this problem ...)

well - in this case these two links :

http://developer.apple.com/Documenta...MRemoveDisplay

http://developer.apple.com/Documenta...c/DMNewDisplay

sound (i can only guess) as if they could help with what is needed here.

Buy one cheap KVM switch. Have one channel connecting the Cinema Display to your Mac. Have the other channel connecting the Cinemal Display to oblivion.

Hmm, not bad, AHunter3. I happen to have an unused KVM, too.

thanks, that's a good (but rather pricey) solution ...

i didn't think of that.

i even had to look up what a KVM switch actually does :rolleyes:


so i'll try and find an affordable KVM switch then - but having another hardware box (and all these stupid cables) around doesn't make me too happy, especially if it's just a workaround for a simple thing.

so the search for a software solution still continues - but thanks for showing me this way around.

This is an old post - & I'm a new user. But any joy with this problem?

I came across this forum searching for a way to turn off my Cinema Display - and still haven't worked out how to do it.

no - i'm sorry , still the same problem over here...

Although the time to watch DVDs and really "need" that option got less over time.

I'd really appreciate it though, if you'd post back here when YOU find a solution.

Best regards...

Yes!

It is possible. At least, it is in Tiger 10.4.1. In the Displays Preference Pane, go to the Options tab. There's a set of radio buttons for turn the display on and off, put the system to sleep, or do nothing.

I don't know when this was introduced, but I don't remember seeing anything like it in Panther.

you had me all happy already, but...
 

these checkboxes unfortunately won't turn off a display.

they are there so you can disable the power/sleep button on the display.
like you would want to do with the mac running in kiosk mode where you want to deny trolls turning off the display/computer.

hmmmm, i discovered a truly new setting at the display-control-panel though, you can now rotate your display around as you like - 90degree - 180 270 whatever.

sure looks funny on the cinema display...

I've always wanted a simple way to disable one of the displays as well, specifically when gaming and when watching TV or a DVD in full-screen on one display.

I remember in Linux there was a way to access all of the power management settings from the command line. Perhaps something similar exists for OS X?

That's funny, it works fine for me. I set it to "Turns the display on and off" then touch the power button. Display goes off. Note that this is not a check box, it's a radio button.

i must be blind - or you have a different version of tiger than me...

i took a screenshot of the [ options ] in [ display preferences ] ...

http://fundisom.com/display-prefs.png

these checkboxes (they're german) just disable the buttons on the display...

man - i'd love to turn one of these displays off sometimes, please show me exactly what you mean and where you / i can find that radio buttons...

Looks like the German version of Tiger is a bit different. Which doesn't make sense -- they should just be translating things, not changing them around. Note that this is Tiger 10.4.1 as I mentioned earlier:
http://nkuvu.homeip.net/images/post_...y_settings.png

i want this now !
 

this is really weird...

would you mind hopping in your /System/Library/PreferencePanes/ folder and zip up a copy of the Display.prefPane ?

please (if you can) send this to lixlpixel at gmail dot com

although i'm running 10.4.1 too...


what display are you using - the new - aluminium cinema display ?

might be that these new displays finally support this option and therefore only you can see that options... ?


i sent a feature request to apple long time ago (when i started this thread)...
did they really listen ?


but still - i have two old (acryl) cinema displays and i would love to be able to do that too...

My 10.4.1 box does not have an option to turn off the display.

What kind of display do you have? Video card? I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this is a function specific to a certain display or video card. And Apple hides options you can't use, generally.

I don't have an option to turn off the display either. I'm running 10.4.1 with a 17" Studio Display (LCD) and a 17" Sony Trinitron (CRT) with a GeForce 4 Ti 4600.

For the record, I forgot to mention that yes, this is on a 20" Apple cinema display. lixlpixel, I can send you the Display.prefpane if you really like, but I doubt you'd see the option. I can't imagine that Tiger would be distributed with different prefPanes.

But for systems that don't have, for example, a UPS, you don't see the UPS section in the Energy Saver. I suspect this is the same.

but WHAT cinema display are you using ?
 

well - there's still one record missing :)

are you using the new (all aluminium) cinema display ?

that's the only thing i can imagine.

these "new" cinema displays probably have that option, but i'm using the old clear acrylic cinema displays.

you're right that these options would show up here too if i had your display...

i guess we / i still have the old problem then.

but thanks for replying and checking things out.

i appreciate it...

Err... yes, it is the new cinema display. Sorry, I thought I wrote that in there...

Here's a twist...

20" Cinema display (new aluminum), connected to a Digital Audio G4 (using a DVI-ADC adapter from Apple) running Panther 10.3.8.

The "Displays" preference panel offers a feature to use the Cinema Display's power button to sleep the computer (similar to my old Studio Display CRT monitor). However, when I push the power button on the Display, a window pops up instead asking me if I'm sure I want to shut down the Mac, and I have to then manually select "Sleep" within that window.

Is there any way to fix this so that pushing the power button on the Cinema Display puts the computer to sleep without any additional steps?

Thanks!

The Solution To Turning off the Cinema Display without turning off the Mac
 

I figured this out today. Simply go into the System Preferences -> Displays and click on the options tab, then tell the power button on the cinema display to turn off the power on the monitor instead of your mac. Really feeling retarded for having not figured it out sooner.

weezey,

i just rechecked - all updated etc. - but still no option for what you wrote.

it must be that this option only is shown when your display can deal with it.

do you have the new aluminiun-cinema display?

check out the post from nkuvu (06-05-2005) above - he said the same thing ...

This doesn't work with ADC-based displays.

bedouin, do you have any source for that?

Not sure I get it..

I finally updated to Tiger on my main work desktop Mac, and it's got an original 22" cinema display (ADC). No "Option" tab in the Display prefpane.

However, I have users with Tiger and 17" Apple ADC displays and they DO have an "Options" tab in the Display prefpane.

Not sure what the diff is..

I have a 17" LCD (ADC) and I have the options tab, there's just no way to toggle the power button to only shut off the display, not sleep the machine. This is in contrast to newer DVI based displays with external power supplies, that do allow this -- probably because of their external power supplies.

Here is how i turn off my pb's LCD when I use a projecter
just close pb's cover, then move ur mouse very fast till the picture
showing on the projecter, than open the cover
ur LCD won't turn on unless u touch the keybord

This won't help, as we're talking about LCD monitors, not laptops. Thanks though.

here is what you do.
 

In the system preferences there is a selection for what the power button on the display will do. Choose put display to sleep. I do not know if this will work for dual displays but it works on my single display set up. I will be trying this with a dual display set up very soon. If that doesn't work you can always turn down the brightness on one display.

We've already covered this. More than once, actually. Both times in this very thread.

Did we ever wind up with a solution to this one for us ADC display users? I've gotten myself a DVI-to-ADC adapter so that I can use my display on more machines, but the extra step to power the thing off by killing power to the adapter is somewhat annoying.

Putting my 22" apple display to sleep
 

I just go to the Energy Saver Prefpane and put the sleep monitor option for 5min. and the sleep computer option to never. Five minutes later the lcd is sleeping. However, the Energy Saver sets the same thing for two monitors. But at least it sleeps the lcd.

Is there a way to make a key-shortcut to put your display to sleep now, instead of having to wait for the period you chose in the energysaver-controlpanel?

Just for the record on this thread, it seems that the "Options" tab only appears if the USB Cinema Display cable is connected to your Mac!

It worked for me and I've confirmed it with a few tests: no USB, no Options tab!

(see http://discussions.apple.com/thread....sageID=2194809 altough my tests say the FW cables isn't needed for the Options tab)

Options tab indisply PrefPane only with CinemaDisplay USB plugged in confirmed
 

Options tab on my 20" Al Cinema Display finally displaye (thx guys)!

full control over the LCD power button:
- turn the display on/off
- piuts the system to sleep owr wakes it
- does nothing

You can also enable/disable the brightness buttons via a check box

so looks like Apple finally listened to you guys...

Came looking for a solution here too. I just got a second monitor and now my old one is sitting off to the side. I'd like to be able to dim that one and not the new one. I just wrote feedback to the author of "Shades" asking for dual monitor support. I suggest anyone interested here do the same, and refer to this thread. (File it under bugs but change severity to "feature request")

http://www.charcoaldesign.co.uk/support

Ciao!