Hibernate vs stand by vs shut down

[This Side Up]

Hi guys,

I was wondering what you lot use in Windows XP/Vista when you no longer need your PC for a period of time (e.g. a few hours, over night etc).

I have recently started to use the stand by function on my PC a lot, it makes it quicker to get back into things. I am fully aware of the power consumption in stand by mode.

Also, what I can't seem to decide, is which is best for me - stand by or hibernate? Part of me thinks I am missing a trick or two by using stand by instead of hibernate.

 

[AbsenceJam]

Hibernate uses the same amount of power as off and can wake up even after a power loss because everything is saved to disk. But it takes a bit longer to wake up than sleep.

 

[This Side Up]

Is that what you use?

 

[Pulse]

I use sleep for my PC as it's on and off pretty much all day, but as stated above if there is power loss then I will loose everything that's open.

For my laptop as there is normal long time frames between using it, I just have that hibernate.

 

[This Side Up]

Do you manually enter sleep mode, or have Windows power management do it after a set period of time?

I have been toying with the idea of using sleep mode when my computer is inactive for a set period of time, and use hibernate for overnight/periods when it is off for a few days. I'd only use shutdown/restart to freshen everything up occasionally.

Is there any problems doing this, or is it A-OK?

 

[deuse]

I dont use Hibernate I switch my comp off.
you can then delete the Hibernate sys and get back about 3-5gig of HD space.

 

[Clairvoyant]

I use sleep during the day. And when I go to bed it gets shut down.

 

[Blackbadger]

How much power does the sleep method consume approx ?

 

[This Side Up]

I've been told it's peanuts...like 15watts or something.

Anyone else use hibernate instead of shut down?

 

[HEADRAT]

I dont use Hibernate I switch my comp off.
you can then delete the Hibernate sys and get back about 3-5gig of HD space.

That's why I use S3 sleep, no hiberfil.sys file.

 

[lokkers]

Hibernate for both laptop and desktop. Its much faster to resume from than shutdown (Vista and W7 don't need to rebuild the prefetch cache), and I don't miss the 4GB of space on disk.

 

[cokecan]

i tend to just use standby (S5 resume??), by the time I come to shut my PC down I've not got anything running really so only use it for the faster startup

 

[HEADRAT]

Well I'm just moving to SSD so I don't want a file eating 4GB of my disk space, I find S3 resume faster than S4.

HEADRAT

 

[This Side Up]

Headrat, do you use S3 resume all the time (i.e. over night, etc)?

 

[HEADRAT]

Yep

 

[d_brennen]

Hibernate for the win. I need to do a hard reset every month or so cos my computer gets a bit wobbly.

 

[This Side Up]

Yep

I see. You don't ever hibernate it? I assume you retart it occasionally to keep everything fresh and running smooth?

 

[marc2003]

i use sleep all the time. i just close all programs first to be on the safe side.

 

[This Side Up]

I think that's what I'll start doing then. I have alwYs used hibernate previously as I was worried about power cuts...then I realised that I always close down all programmes before hibernating anyway, so I may as well sleep it.

Thanks for the insight, guys.

 

[Burnsy2023]

i use sleep all the time. i just close all programs first to be on the safe side.

I use sleep as well but I don't even bother closing programs. It only gets a restart for updates, pretty much the same as the Mac.