Question about hibernating my PC

I have a Dell Dimension 3000 with a p4 at 2.8g and 80g hardrive and 1g of ram. I also use Mcafee security suite. I have windows xp sp2(home)

In the last month I was able to get a DSL line thru my local phone company(Qwest) and now I leave my pc on most of the day(7:00am-7:00pm). I want to hae my pc go into a lower power comption state when I am off the computer.

I I go to control panel>power option properties>power schemes and the screen shows as follows:

Turn off monitor: after 20 minutes

Turn off hard disks: after 1 hour

System Standby: never

System hibernates: never

power option properties>hibernates

shows: enable hibernation is checked and also shows free disk space and space needed to hibrnate.

It seems to me that after I leave the pc for a while the fans/hard drive don't make as much nois as they were when I was using the pc, but it is somewhat hard for me to hear because I am hard of hearing and wear hearing aids.

Is it really hibernating? or do I have to go to the system setup screens?

sorry for the long description. I am very hesitant and son't want to screw up my pc.

Rich

Responses(2)

mombodog

12.7K Posts

0

March 21st, 2007 18:00

Hibernate is really meant for Laptop PC's to conserve battery power, it is advised to disable the Hibernate function on a desktop, most desktop users are using the settings you currently have, turning off hard drives and monitors after a specified amount of time. You could reduce the hard dive time to equal the monitor.

You can use the standby function to conserve more energy, but some people report problems when resuming from standby.

newbynovice

31 Posts

0

March 22nd, 2007 12:00

Thanks for the reply. I guess it makes sense that hibernate is most useful for laptop battery conservation and not for a desktop pc. Duh on my part. I have heard about people not able to come back from a standby status, so I am NOT going to try that.

Thanks again.

Rich

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Question about hibernating my PC