If one can Hybernate - why turn off ?

I dont get it.

If I can Hybernate my machine (which makes XP reload super fast) why would I ever opt for the "Turn Off" option ?

Am I missibg something ?

 

many people do not turn off, and only restart to apply updates.

 

There are several cases for a full shutdown/full startup:

1) Free up system resources.
--Any applications that run and are then closed may not necessarily free up all their memory. Some is cached by the OS, some could potentially become no longer usable (until a full OS reboot) due to application memory leaks etc. The same symptoms can apply to buggy device drivers etc.

2) Fresh-detect of external devices on boot.
--Some external devices that are used prior to hibernation may not function properly when resuming from hibernation, and will require a disconnect/reconnect to resume functionality. In these instances, some people prefer to simply start the OS fresh to allow devices to reinitialize properly.

3) Some bugs in ACPI (and APM on legacy systems) and Hibernate implementations. Some systems have minor BIOS bugs that are more apparent with resuming from a sleep state such as Standby or Hibernate. The same can apply to device drivers, and third-party device firmware bugs, and even bugs in the OS itself. This typically can be seen in notebooks when fan speed behavior changes after resuming, cpu throttling behavior might be different, gpu throttling behavior might be different, etc.

4) When using a docking station, hibernating while docked, taking your system home, and resuming w/o a dock, the Display-Adapter settings and Network settings often don't switch properly (i.e. they don't always recognize the docked/undocked status change).


Long story short, if Hibernation and Resuming from Hibernation works for your situation, great. It's still advised you do a full reboot on occasion to free up resources, or to allow OS hotfixes/patches to install properly etc. But if it works for you use it. If it doesn't, perform full shutdowns as necessary etc.

I work with analysts that can go 3 months without a shutdown, and I work with developers who require a daily shutdown due to memory utilization issues w/ their applications, and performance degradation experienced (due to bios+driver bugs, memory leaks, the whole 9 yards).

 

I appriciate U taking the time to write that wondeful answar !!!

THANKS A MILLION !!!!

 

Another thing to consider is standby. You can get pretty decent standby time and even quicker bootup than hibernation. Hibernation dumps contents of RAM to your HDD, so if you have a lot going on, it will take some time to hibernate and resum. There is some battery drain while in standby, but unless you are shutting down for more than 4 or 5 days, you'll be fine. I go to a number of meetings each day and standby in between, plus standby to/from home. I do shut down occasionally when Vista gets flaky or for Wndows Updates.

 

Any way is best for prolonging the lifespan of the laptop?

 

Hopefully they will have more new types of battery in the future, Li-ion won't last forever...

 

I doubt either makes a difference for the life of the laptop. If the charge level does go down far enough during standby, it will count as a charge cycle and impact the remaining number of usable charge cycles of the battery.

I find that a battery only lasts for 18-24 months max anyway before the full charge capacity is half the design capacity, so the laptop life should greatly exceed that of the battery...

 

What I meant in my question was to prolong the life of the *laptop* (CPU and maybe other parts), not the battery (you can always buy a new battery). E.g. many people never turn off their desktops thinking turning on and off making the CPU subject frequent change of temperatures will shorten its life.

 

Right, and I said I doubt it matters either way.

Power on/off cycles are hard on machines (chip temps fluctuating, etc) , as is 24x7 operation on moving parts (hard drives, fans, etc). I don't think that debate will ever be settled.

Suffice to say, you will probably be ready for a new machine by the time yours dies. I generally shy away from anything longer than a 3 year warranty uplift for that very reason.

A friend of mine hibernates his T60p all the time, and I'm a standby guy with my work T60p. We'll see who's machine goes in first

 

I used to have a desktop which I turn on and off at least twice a day, it worked nearly 7 years and was still fine when I got rid of it (for a couple of months I tried to leave it on all the time but it's too noisy so I stopped that). With laptops I don't feel comfortable carrying it out without turning it off.

 

I've used standby with an occasional restart to clean things up and for updates, etc. on a T21 which is entering it's 7th year of service. (BTW, this was a one and only machine as in it was heavily used until the T60 arrived a couple of months ago.) I'm using a similar approach on my T60.

 

I got a quick question about hibernate, does it still require voltage to be supplied to the computer just like sleep does? I never really got around to testing this to much since it seems like its just a Vista thing.

 

when you are in hiber.. it's just like shutting down your computer (power wise)



--

 

Actually,

If you're travelling around, its best never to leave your laptop on standby/sleep mode. I've recently spoke with a IBM/Lenovo Service Engineer and he recommended that the laptop be put into hibernation mode, if you're carrying it around, as the hdd is still running, and might cos the hdd lifespan to drop in suspend/sleep mode.

 

He was mistaken. If the computer is in standby, the hdd is not running. Everything shuts down, but RAM is still powered and holding state (unlike hibernate where the RAM is copied to the HDD and the system is powered off).

 

Alrighty, here goes (long post below but addresses all posts I've read thus far):

With Regard to Both Solutions: When a system goes into Standby or Hibernate, various devices will enter pre-defined ACPI sleep states. Typically the chipset + video driver/card + bios + OS ACPI daemon will handle this, however these drivers + bios features also have to appropriately return the devices to their previous powerstates when resuming.
As many users have seen, when resuming from standby or hibernate, some systems will not throttle to full speed until a full reboot, some graphic cards will not display to televisions they are connected to when resuming, etc. This can be caused by bugs or problems in any one of these components (or lack of functionality for that matter). Assuming perfect power state (apm/acpi) implementations @ driver + bios + OS levels, either option should work sufficiently w/o having to worry about hardware failure. (Remember, some RAM vendors offer lifetime warranties, so they believe their memory can handle it w/o issue).


With Regard To Standby:
My 'suggestion' would be to avoid standby for long periods of time due to the possibility of the battery being completely drained, which will cause RAM contents to be lost and thus windows will likely reboot with a checkdisk or something similar. On desktops, this issue is not as apparent. I will say though, the Nintendo Wii is a good example of a Standby implementation, and it works well. If standby works for you, and you can factor in battery usage as appropriate, I don't see any harm in using it

With regard to Hibernate:
Just remember, when you hibernate, you typically dump contents of your RAM to disk. This is more disk utilization, but shutting down your system also incurs disk utilization, so it's difficult to determine which is actually a 'best practice'. As stated in previous posts, if Hibernate works well for you, use it. If not, don't use it.

This is just my 2 cents...but I am expecting a high rate of return hehe.

 

For those running Windows Vista on their notebooks I would recommend you to use the Standby/Sleep function as RAM contents is still kept alive. The main benefit, as some have already stated, is a very quick return to functional state after turning your system back on.

But more importantly for me, since Vista uses the Superfetch function it starts to reload programs into RAM after returning from hibernation. This long disk activity affects the battery life as well. After a few returns from hibernation I find the battery drain to be quite heavy compared to returning from Sleep mode.

Naturally it depends on your use of the notebook, but in general I'd recommend Sleep. And if running to meetings all day like myself, then I find Sleep mode to be a must as it is necessary to turn on the notebook asap.

I find the battery drain to be very small. Maybe 3-5% on a small 4-cell battery after using the Sleep function 4 times on/off. Including the battery drain while "sleeping" maybe that will come to a total of 10%.

If in Sleep mode a whole day without ever activation the system, I loose maybe about 5-7% battery life on a 4-cell battery. Very negligible IMO.