'standby'vs. 'turn off hard discs' vs 'suspend', 'hibernate?

[parangles]

I can't find any definitions of the various terms used in power management settings/options. What degree of shut down or partial usage of resources occurs with each of these terms, and what approximate power consumption is there in each state ?
What is less destructive of the hardware of a computer?- shutting it down , and rebooting frequently ( 6 times a day) , or having it go into some semi
shut down state constantly ? ( Assuming battery conservation is a separate & different issue)
Thanks !
Chris.

[farna]

If it's only once a day, or ou will be gone more than a couple hours, shut the thing down. The old "leave it on" advice comes from the days when hardware was much less reliable. I remember having an old 20MB drive (yes MB, not GB!) that I hated to move. When you turned it off it took a while to come back up to speed, and sometimes needed a "nudge" to get started. But once up to speed it was fine! Eventually it didn't restart, but we don't have that problem anymore!

Hibernate saves all your settings temporarily and restarts the computer to the start where you left off. It draws very little (if any) power as it shuts everything off.

I'm not positive about suspend. I think it keeps memory powered but shuts other items off. It doesn't actually restart the computer when you come back, it just restores the screen and starts the drives and such back up. It draws more power than hibernate.

The settings in your power management make a difference in battery life. You can have everything on when on AC power and it won't matter. I set everyting at 10-15 minutes just for energy conservation. If I haven't accessed the HD in 15 minutes I'm not doing anything that is HD intensive to say the least! I have the screen shut down a few minutes after the HD. When on battery power I set it more aggressive. I still leave the screen on 5-10 minutes, but the HD I cut off at 3-5 minutes. Just a matter of preference and how long you want to run on batteyr power.

[parangles]

Thanks farna,
I guess, as you suggest, its the wear and tear on the hardware that we are most concerned about. The screen seems to be the most vulnerable; judging from the number of 600's with dead screens on Ebay.
Closing the lid and having it go into 'standby' etc. is quickest and most convenient. I just don't know what occurs when each of the settings takes effect. 'turn off hard disks' preceeds 'standby' in the power options listings,
so what else happens under 'standby' and, versus ' hibernate' ?
I will experiment with having it go into the various options by closing the lid, and watching battery consumption as an indicator of activity.
You'd think IBM would have some info on this in all their manuals , Eh ?
Thanks,
Chris.

[JHEM]

Standby will give you the fastest "restart". In standby everything is written to memory and the HD, display and CPU are shut down. Thinkpads can remain in this state, depending on model and battery condition, for up to a week or more. Waking the unit should take ten seconds or less.

Hibernate takes a "snapshot" of your Thinkpad and what applications and files are open and writes this to the HD. The unit then shuts down completely and there is (at least there should be) no drain on the battery. Upon starting up again the unit "recovers" to the saved state rather than starting the OS afresh and then making you load all apps and files manually. It shouldn't take more than 30 seconds for the unit to be ready to use after hitting the power button and the unit restarts. There is no specific time limit for how long a unit can remain hibernated.

None of my Thinkpads are ever "turned off" uness I know they're going to be sitting on the shelf for a while, but even then they're just as likely to be hibernated. My daily drivers are most often in standby, while units I only use every few days or so are hibernated. When I'm travelling, whichever machine I have with me will usually be in standby when I'm not using it.

Regards,

James

[parangles]

Thanks lots ! That is good info that many others will also find very useful. I want to keep this laptop going as long as posssible.
Cheers,
Chris.

[emorphien]

In general, with laptops I do not keep them running because heat is more of a problem with them than desktops. I use hibernate the most with my old Dell, the 7200 RPM drive I put in it really makes it go in to and come out of hibernation fast. I use sleep going from class to class, etc if I know it'll get turned on soon.

I rarely turn it off, instead I use hibernate most times which is why I've had system up times over 1000 hours on it.

Otherwise, since start up is the hardest part on fans and drives (like an engine) I tend to leave my desktop running all the time. New components are more reliable, but they still have a chance of lasting longer if they're not going through so many start up cycles.