VESA Display Power Management Signaling

VESA Display Power Management Signaling (or DPMS) is a standard from the VESA consortium for managing the power supply of video monitors for computers through the graphics card. The most common use is to shut off the monitor after the computer has been idle for some time.

DPMS was based on the EPA Energy Star specifications.

The standard defines how to signal the H-sync and V-sync pins in a standard SVGA monitor to trigger the monitor's power saving capabilities.

DPMS defines four modes, normal, standby, suspended and off. In off some power may still be drawn in order to power indicator lights. The standard is:

	Normal	Standby	Suspended	Off
H-sync	on	off	on	off
V-sync	on	on	off	off
Power use	100%	<80%	<30W	<8W

Compare to screen saver.

External links:

• VESA Display Power Management Signaling (DPMS) Standard