[SOLVED] Put internal display to sleep on ThinkPad X201 laptop

raxod502 · 2026-01-04 01:43:02

I've just installed Arch on a ThinkPad X201 laptop that I use as a home server. Since it is a server, I access it typically by SSH and the internal display is not needed after boot. I don't want the display to sit forever on the console login screen and never turn off, for the sake of longevity.

One solution (and what I used to do, when I had Ubuntu on this laptop) is to install a desktop environment like GNOME, even though there's no real reason for it, and then let the DE take care of locking and blanking the screen after some inactivity. However, that seems really silly. I figure it must be possible to simply turn off a display without installing all of GNOME.

From my own research, running "sudo vbetool dpms off" should do something, however it returns with exit status 0 and no observable effect for me. I also tried adding consoleblank=0 as a default kernel parameter in GRUB, but that didn't make any difference that I could tell either. Apparently "setterm --powerdown 1" should work, but it does nothing that I can tell, regardless of whether run over ssh or from the console directly. On the other hand, "setterm --powersave on" reports an inappropriate ioctl error and does nothing.

I checked the BIOS, but no settings there are relevant. No tips on https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X201 either.

Any ideas? I just want to turn off the display with a minimum of fuss.

Last edited by raxod502 (2026-01-04 21:01:24)

5hridhyan · 2026-01-04 04:10:37

Tools like vbetool or setterm --powerdown won’t work on modern Intel KMS systems.
On the Linux virtual console, display blanking is handled by the kernel, not userspace DPMS.
you can try

consoleblank=300

(300 seconds = 5 minutes)
After updating GRUB and rebooting, the console framebuffer will blank, which on Intel ThinkPads also turns off the panel backlight.

Last edited by 5hridhyan (2026-01-04 04:41:46)

raxod502 · 2026-01-04 21:01:09

Works like a charm! I updated the wiki page to mention this information: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Linux_ … ic_suspend

Arch Linux

#1 2026-01-04 01:43:02

[SOLVED] Put internal display to sleep on ThinkPad X201 laptop

#2 2026-01-04 04:10:37

Re: [SOLVED] Put internal display to sleep on ThinkPad X201 laptop

#3 2026-01-04 21:01:09

Re: [SOLVED] Put internal display to sleep on ThinkPad X201 laptop

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