Windows 'Stand By' question

[Dist]

i leave my computer on 24/7, and one thing that has recently popped into my head is that i could possibly use windows standby to cut down on power usage and such while im asleep, but i do have a few questions about it.

wikipedia says standby has several modes:
S1: S1 is the most basic stand by mode. Only hard drives and monitors are turned off at Stand by S1.

S3: Same as in S1, but fans and the CPU are also turned off.

how can i find out what mode my windows goes into when i use standby? because i still wont my fans and cpu active. Also, will the hard drive being turned off effect my mIRC client i have running at all? i would have to have logging disabled as it wouldnt be able to make logs if the HDD is turned off. but what im not sure on is if irc would just disconect/crash without the hdd.

if it turns out that i cant use irc and stand by mode together then i guess ill just have to leave my pc running as normal 24/7.

 

[bledd]

in S3 mode, you'd think the pc is off, some motherboards will make your powerlight pulse or sleep light flash, depends how they're made

ie, ONLY ram has power running through it, then it takes about 2-5 seconds to get back to logon screen or windows, depending how you've configured windows

your bios will have the option to change from S1 to S3 (at least i'd like to think it would)

 

[TheMightyTen]

I have found in the past that poorly written drivers for some peripherals don't come back properly when coming out of stand by , Usually manifested by network cards (wired and wireless) and many USB devices.

 

[DanMc07]

I have found in the past that poorly written drivers for some peripherals don't come back properly when coming out of stand by , Usually manifested by network cards (wired and wireless) and many USB devices.

kind of what happens to me, I would go in to stanby, but when I come back on to windows the internet won't work, so I would have to reboot to get it to work again