hi:
I have the toshiba techra M2.
Great little machines indeed.  You are refering to the far right hand button
beside the power button and the other one touch access button.
It is actually a display mode change button of some sort.  It turns the
screen off for a couple seconds while it alters the settings or something.
Anyway, there is no way to permanently disable  the laptop monitor.  Can you
imagine the tech support nightmare if they offered such a feature...people
would turn it off either by accident or design, and then wouldn't be able to
use the machine because you'd have to get back into that menu or folder to
turn it back on.  A one touch button would be great for that though.
If you go into power settings, you can turn down the brightness of the
display, and you can have it go dark after a certain idol time.
Also, a screen saver would help to reduce a little bit of energy consumption
i think.
The techra series is certainly not known for its long battery life.  I
typically use the regular onboard battery as well as another one that goes
in the modular bay where the CD drive would normally go.  I get about 5 to 8
hours depending on what i'm doing out of the two batteries together.
One thing that you might consider is modifying a VGA cable in some way to
make the laptop think it has an external monitor, and then automatically
shutdown the laptop screen.
I'm not sure if an external monitor being hooked up will allow you to shut
off the laptop screen or not though.
73
Colin, V A6BKX
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lou Kolb" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 12:49 PM
Subject: OT techra laptop


>
> Has anyone ever used a Toshiba Techra Laptop?  I've inherited my xyl's old
> one and it's great in nearly every respect.  However, I'd like to be able
to
> save battery power by turning off the monitor most of the time.  Indeed,
> there is a button which seems to do exactly that only it stays off for 2
> seconds and fires back up again.  Any ideas on how to control this?  I've
> looked at the power save settings but can't seem to figure out how to do
> what I want with it.  Thanks.  Lou
>
>
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