Is Hibernation Bad for the System?

Is hibernation or Hybrid Sleep bad for our machines? I run Vista Business and the Help screens suggest that one use "sleep" and only turn the machine off if installing hardware and updates.

 

No... the only issue i've had is Windows acting funny after it's been running without a full reboot for a few weeks.

 

So you're saying it's better to put the computer to sleep than to turn it off? I turn off my computer every night and have it set to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity on battery and 2 hours while plugged in.

 

Sleep = something's still on
Hibernate = everything is turned off

In terms of hardware being worn out, there is no difference between hibernate and turning it off. And with sleep the difference should be unnoticeable. The reason sleep/hibernate is recommended is to 'enhance user experience', ie you'll be up and running faster than if you had shut down completely.

 

the only disadvantage to using hibernate is that it will take up some harddisk space.

 

As mentioned by others,

Sleep - Low-power mode. Power to most components are turned off. Power to the system memory is maintained to retain it's contents. When returning to full-power mode, the system simply continues where it left off almost instantly.

Hibernate - The entire contents of the system memory is dumped to a file on the hard drive before powering down the entire system. When powering-up, the system boots like a normal power-up, then the O/S writes that file back to memory so that the computer can basically continue where it left off.

 

I always use the sleep mode.

 

ive always used hibernation, but on the T61 with Vista, i get weird results when waking up. Mainly my resolution changes from 1440x to 800x !

 

Strange, I've never had that happen with mine. I'm running a clean install of Vista using the Nvidia and the monitor drivers from Lenovo's site.

 

it doesnt happen everytime, and I thought it was gone for good, but just happened...

 

hey guyz i just ordered my laptop recently and it comes with a 6cell panasonic battery

 

Hibernation IS BAD for your system, maybe not bad for the hardware but it definitely has a bad impact on the registry and other windows processes. I know this because I have talked to a DELL tech support about it and he recommends that you turn your computer off rather than hibernating it (Yes, he was Indian and was very knowledgeable about computers). Also I have heard from several computer savvy friends, including someone who builds computers for a living, that hibernation is indeed bad.

ALSO, since I got my laptop I would always hibernate it every time I needed to turn it off (several times a day for about 6 months) and lo and behold, I had crazy problems with my computer freezing due to a very bad registry. I reformatted my computer 2 times and it didn't work; thats when I joined these forums not too long a go to see if there was any sort of solution to my problem. Luckily I was told to use a disk cleaner and I did, and that seemed to have solved my issue(I dont get computer freezes anymore).

Yes hibernation saves you time, thats why I used it, but it damages your system, so i HIGHLY RECCOMEND THAT YOU NOT USE HIBERNATE! Sleep is different from hibernation and I do not know about how that affects the system. I don't think it could hurt because the system simply idles in that state. But take it from a guy that has experienced the misfortunes of hibernate-just dont use it.

 

Uhh... wrong thread?

 

Hibernation is only bad for poorly written software and poorly written drivers.

For instance a program that constantly accesses the registry would cause corruption. A bad driver might not wake the screen up.

I've been using Hibernation on every laptop I've used and it's not a problem.

I've even hibernated in the middle of a game(CS/SC/Hitman Series) to move my machine between classes.

 

You are probably right. But I updated all drivers and software as soon as possible and still had issues with it. Guess Lenovo's software isn't very solid. After my experience I am never going to use hibernation again.

 

i guess microsoft and lenovo is out to get us with this dangerous hibernation :|

 

Why does the the registry cause problems related to hibernation?

 

I would like to know that too.

 

It was an example. Well this is a hypothetical situation. Say a program is in the middle of editing it. If it's poorly written it might just end the operation and not finish it when the system comes back online. So when you restart that change will pop up or it might just screw up on restore.

 

Thats weird, I was under the impression that registry writes was transactional, and would be rolled back unless committed properly.

 

In my experience, hibernation is very safe.

If you have registry issues, its probably because some background (ie spyware, virus, greyware) is accessing the registry and the user is not aware of it and then puts the system in hibernation

the registry is usually only accessed when installing/removing programs or changing system settings, so as long as you are not doing any of that, its safe to put the system into hibernation

also the registry itself is rather versatile and doesnt corrupt that easy (unless malware is involved).

 

I had a very clean system, no viruses, I would always scan for spyware and adware on a daily basis. But I did, have a lot of programs and I almost always had a very full hard drive, maybe that was part of the problem?

 

most "free" spyware scanners themselves have lots of background junk running. sometimes even updating the definitions can cause a registry access (depends on the software design)

yeah sounds like you had lots of stuff going on in the background.

what you should probably do is

1) clean install
2) setup all apps and stuff just they way you like
3) disable unwanted services
4) make an image (always a good idea, i perfer making my own recovery discs with ghost & custom installation discs with nlite)

then do your hibernation tests, all should work well. I use hibernation when on the road with microsoft streets & trips (and several other apps) and it works flawlessly