Standby / Hibernate / Shut Down - when to use which?

[cjsuh]

Okay, I know. Very noobish of me to ask, but I want to make sure I don't screw anything up on my new ThinkPad. So, can someone briefly go through the types of scenarios that would call for the different power-down options? Thanks in advance!

[Leon]

48 hrs or less, 1 week or less, more than one week......

[mdarnton]

Hibernate's for long-term putting away without actually shutting down--it turns off everything, completely, after it stores on the hard drive an image of what the thing had in its little brain when you put it to sleep. And when you wake it up the next day, it feeds that image back into RAM. That means, for instance, that you can leave your favorite programs open on the screen when you hibernate, rather than shutting them down, and save the time of rebooting when you want to go back to work. I usually put my computer into hibernation, until things start acting strangely, at which point I shut it completely down and re-boot to get everything stable again. Essentially, there's no down side to hibernation, and the up sides of faster startup and keeping favorite programs open when you turn the computer off. Hibernating takes some time, both starting and stopping, but less than rebooting. Both hibernate and shutting down are zero power consumption when the computer's off, so in terms of battery life they're identical.

Standby shuts off the lights and action, but uses power to keep the image of what's going on alive in RAM, rather than putting it on the hard drive. The downside of standby is slight power consumption to keep the RAM fed (not really much, on a day to day basis, and none at all if you're plugged in), and the up side is instantaneous access when you want to go to work.

Shutting down completely flushes everything, and when you start up, you're working with a clean slate. This is helpful when programs become unstable, or resources loss makes your computer sluggish or non-functional. Of all the alternatives, it takes the most time from when you flip the switch to when you're working

I haven't found a downside to hibernating, but my system acted strangely with standby, which I think I've fixed. . . something about the software for the battery kicking the CPU usage to 100% and making the fan run all the time, while slowing everything to a crawl. I loaded the newest battery stuff, but haven't tried standby since--once burned, twice shy. In theory, though, that would be my favorite, because I use my computer constantly, and like the instant-on aspect of it.

[byron]

stand by - whatever is in memory (RAM) at the time stays there and turns off everything else. nice for quick power off/on. downside is it requires a little bit of power so if you're not using it for a while (4+ days) and you're on battery this may not be the best idea.

hibernate - whatever is in memory (RAM) is written to a file on the hard drive and then turns off the system. when you press the power button it loads the data back into memory. nice for power downs of more than a day (IMO). downside is that it takes longer to power up/down than standby but is still faster than a traditional shutdown/startup.

shutdown - fairly obvious.


personally... i use standby all through the day. if its the end of the day and im going to bed or taking the thinkpad somewhere with me.. i use hibernate. i may do a traditional shutdown once a week to regain any memory that may have not been properly reallocated.

[Greg Gebhardt]

Okay, I know. Very noobish of me to ask, but I want to make sure I don't screw anything up on my new ThinkPad. So, can someone briefly go through the types of scenarios that would call for the different power-down options? Thanks in advance!

I don't use hibernate very much, if at all.

All during the day and even overnight on the weekends I will use suspend. It is fast and my laptop wakes up fully ready to go in only seconds. It does use a little bit of power but not enough to worry abvout for even over night.

Hibernation takes too long to wake up from.

[cjsuh]

Thanks for the quick responses. They were all very helpful. I'm assuming all of these power-downs are safe for travel, e.g. commuting to school and business trips. What if you're boarding a plane, are you required to fully shut-down?

[Greg Gebhardt]

You should not have any trouble on suspend. Many will leave their notebook in suspend so they can bring it to life quickly at the security desk.

If you are worried while on a plane turn it off, but as many use their computer while on the plane I can't see what suspend is going to harm.

[kangazoom]

if you're connected to the internet and you go into standby, you're taken offline, right?

[Leon]

yes, but you are back on immediately when you come back up.....

[RoadHazard]

Hibernate is a good alternative to sleep if you're concerned about power consumption. It starts up quite fast compared to shutdown. And you don't have to wait for all the drivers to settle down before start using. But hibernate takes longer to power off than shutdown at least on my TP.

But it's a good idea to completely shut down once in a while.