Comments on: Hibernation, Great for bats but….

By: bill

bill — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:46:39 +0000

lol.. you compared the energy usage to a toaster… tell me, when was the last time you had your toaster on for more than 2 mins? Compared to systems that most people let run 24/7.. the reality is your monitors and pcs use alot of power over the course of a month, esp those of us who have leet gaming machines, running multiple GPUs HDDs water cooling and massive power supplys.. and fyi, the smallest things add up 'not to say unnecessary running pcs is small', because id put that, and unwatched running TVs as a HUGE part of wasted energy…

By: Misha

Misha — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:47:11 +0000

All, I've been trying to do my part on conservation and use hibernating for quite awhile. I think that's why my desktop is so sluggish and continually freezes and becomes non-responsive. I'm going to try the standby/turn hard disk off first, maybe upgrade the UPC, and see what happens. Thanks for sharing everyone!

By: Joe Garrett

Joe Garrett — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:52:38 +0000

bwuahahah….Power Consumption? The average laptop runs lower amount of wattage than say your toaster. And the PC can use alot more depending on the pc…but, still irresponsible? Standing on this soap box seems irresponsible…Though, it is a thought. There are much larger issues that abound and should be addressed that are more in tune with conservation.

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:11:33 +0000

In this day of global warming and ever increasing energy prices (the current recession not withstanding) it is irresponsible to leave any computer running when not using it. Hibernation works as do all the other power-saving features. Everyone should do everything they can to conserve!

By: shogan

shogan — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:21:20 +0000

Thanks for all the input guys.

By: Harley K.

Harley K. — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:47:36 +0000

I just use my power options to turn off my monitor in 10 min. and turn off Hard Drives after 20 min. Works great for me.

By: Paul Spencer

Paul Spencer — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:02:20 +0000

Sometimes hibernate is useful, sometimes it isn't. You have to consider not just boot time but the time it takes to load up everything you had running, and open all the files you were working on. Considering that, hibernate is definitely quicker if you want to start next time where you left off. On the downside, hibernating clogs up memory – sometimes you have to log off and then log on again.

By: Joseph Schuler

Joseph Schuler — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 13:40:05 +0000

You folks are leaving out one vital fact:
Cold booting gives your hard drive a workout everytime you turn on your computer!
Yes, with a healthy 'environment' the hibernation or standby feature will allow your hard drive to last longer.

By: Tony Chilco

Tony Chilco — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:17:55 +0000

Ditto Mike Sun's comment about faster startups for desktops. Add to the cold boot time the time you'd spend re-opening the programs that you closed before shutting down.

Also, most desktops do, or should, have a battery… it's called a UPS, and running without one is not a wise thing to do. Even an NTFS drive can be trashed by a power failure. The UPS monitoring software should be set to hibernate the PC when the power has been off for more than a few minutes.

I find that time between reboots is usually directly related to how hard you've been working the PC.

By: Mike Sun

Mike Sun — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:55:02 +0000

I use hibernate on desktops as the default option for the advantage of very much faster start up time compared with cold booting.

For laptops, I like to use "standby" as the default option – it is faster than hibernate and safe enough because even with power interruption, the laptop battery provides the necessary backup.

For either standby or hibernate to work reliably, the software needs to be clean and stable which is in itself no bad thing to aim for. However, I would recommend a reboot from time to time – say weekly or whenever software updates demand.

Cheers from Mike