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March 6th, 2008 12:00
Shut Down, Sleep and Hibernate
Trying to work out the difference between Shut Down, Sleep and Hibernation. Now I know Sleep and Hibernation is two forms of the same thing.
But what are they doing? Supposedly they turn off all power to the PC, either after 15 mins or immediately. But if you don’t go through a boot up how can that be true? How is desktop stored ready to come back on unless the PC is getting power?
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ky331
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March 6th, 2008 12:00
Hibernate makes a copy of everything --- your desktop, open programs, &etc. --- and stores this copy as a file on your hard drive. the system powers down completely. and can save this information "indefinitely".
when you hit the power button to start your machine again, it goes to your disk drive, reads the copy, and sets up everything to the state in which you left it.
Sleep, in contrast, does use some minimal electric power to keep everything "alive" in RAM. nothing is saved to disk. So if you lose/disconnect power... and if you wait long enough for your battery (if a laptop) to fully drain... the information will eventually be lost.
You should check your power settings... as it's possible to apply automatic time frames to either of these processes. for example, you might have your computer set to automatically sleep after (for example) 30 minutes of inactivity... and to actually hibernate after (for example) 60 minutes. or you can disable such power settings, in which case your machine stays on as long as you let it.