Hibernate or complete shutdown?

instead of completely shutting down my laptop everynight is it better just to leave it in hibernation mode when i go off to sleep? is this bad for the laptop? can i completely replace shutting down my laptop with just hibernation in the long term?

 

Doesn't matter. No. Yes, if you like.

Hibernation completely cuts the power and shuts off the machine... it just saves the current state to disk first... and reloads that state the next time you turn it on.

 

1- Yes
2- No
3- Yes

There shouldn't be any problem with hibernating a laptop since all electronics get turned off. Sometimes you will need to shut down(or just restart) the system, like when doing updates or if at some point the memory gets corrupted. I personally average 3 weeks between restarts.

 

That answers my future question as well. Thank you comrades!

 

I never shut down anymore, because my Vista install is so freaking slow to boot up. I've been hibernating for 2-3 months now, with a normal shut down/start up once a week or so...no problems so far.

 

SP1 makes Vista bootup time nearly equal XP... but but.. the real culprit are nVidia factory or stock drivers...which add around 1 min more.

 

I never hibernate because I am not a bear, but neither does my computer since he wants more free space on C and doesn't really think it would help him.

 

I always hibernate! Only when you do a major system update you need to restart

 

Hibernation is fine. I do usually turn my system of at night. Force of habit I guess. If you do go away (say for a day or so) I'd turn my system of, just to be sure.

 

I was under the impression... and im putting my head on the line here... but I thought the occasional complete restart was recommended as it updated and logged important files. Its only what I thought I thought I'd heard and i'd be interested to hear others views on it...

 

But XP boottimes get slowed down very quickly if you install a lot of stuff though.

My Vista is strange, I mean, during one week it might boot slow like hell and the other it's almost as fast as my Ubuntu install.

 

Comrade? 1984? Oh no!

 

Yes, leave it in hibernation. It is faster to resume than to boot and it requires less power. Unless I install an application or have to reboot due to a MS update, I never shut down my laptop. If you do a little research you'll find that hibernation is recommended by nearly every computer "expert". In fact, if you want a really quick restart, use suspend/sleep. It draws a ridiculously small amount of power and is great while on the go (travelling, in and out of meetings, etc). You can safely leave your computer in sleep mode, but for extended periods I recommend using hibernation instead of suspend/sleep.

 

lol a+ post

 

Let's hope you don't completely shutdown then

 

Does a vampire hibernate, or shut down?

 

I use my laptop daily in work, and almost daily at home, so, if I have to transport it (15 min car ride) twice a day, would you still recommend hibernate instead of shutdown? what about standby mode?

thanks.

 

Well hibernate is identical to shutting down but it saves your session (ie contents of ram) to HDD so you can boot back in faster. So whether you hibernate or shut down when driving is irrelevant in terms of safety.

When in standby, pretty sure that the HDD is turned off and the RAM is kept running, so there's no moving parts to damage if you pick up the laptop or put it in car while driving. Plus if you leave a system in standby long enough it just switches to hibernate anyway. So do whatever means fastest reload time IMO

 

I personally don't recommend putting the laptop into standby if you're placing it into a backpack/sleeve etc., since there's a slight chance of a laptop suddenly awakening for whatever reason while in standby in and start overheating.

 

I never restart or shut down my laptop unless I am doing any updates. That being said I hibernate when I am not going to be using my computer within the next couple of hours and sleep when it is shorter than those said hours.

 

Hibernation all the way! I hate waiting for Vista to boot up. Even on a high end laptop it takes way too long...

 

Hibernate.

I only use restart/shut down when needed [updates, installation, etc.]