Hibernation vs sleep / hybrid sleep.

[alkemyst]

In the beginning when hibernation started it was flaky so I never used it. I have been leaving my PC on 24/7. However, with my latest builds my room is getting out of control heatwise when I throttle down my A/C during the day.

I have been using hybrid sleep under Windows 7 and it's pretty damn good. My PC wakes up about as fast as it takes me to push the power button and sit down.

Is hibernation really that much better at saving power? In hybrid sleep I know if I loose power I don't lose data (I have a Smart UPS 1500 as well to guarantee this) and all my drives/fans turn off...is hibernation going to save much more/be worth it?

Thanks
Å

 

[sivart]

My understanding is that hibernation uses no power at all while sleep will use a small amount of power. A PC can come out of "sleep" by itself, but not hibernation. Therefore, all my HTPC's "sleep" and never hibernate.

 

[theevilsharpie]

is hibernation going to save much more/be worth it?

No.

 

[JackMDS]

Is hibernation really that much better at saving power?
Å

There is a sad problem when comes to consumers computers, the info is based on Makrektting ploys and Not on technological terms, and Data.

By standard Hibernation means that the computer is totally switched Off.
Only the RAM is saved to a file in the root directory.

Computer totally Off is the best Power saving.




However you have to start the computer as from Off, and it has to Boot through the BIOS as in regualr power On.

In the last Boot step Windows will load the RAM back from the saved File and the computer will come up exactly the way it was.

I.e. Time wise, the Boot would be only few seconds faster than coming from regular Off.

 

[wirednuts]

i have a carpc, and i use hibernation. it is quicker then a fresh restart, but its not a big difference. i would say if it takes 15sec to boot from hibernation, it takes 20sec to boot from fresh restart.

i do try to use hibernation though. its just nice to have everything the same as you last left it (as is everything else in a car). adding a dedicated 2nd battery for my carpc would be the best, because then i could use hybrid sleep. this way i could have it sleep for a couple hours before it hibernates... which would mean instant on for the start and stop driving.

 

[KeypoX]

I have been loving S3 sleep for years now. But maybe I will start using hibernate. Wont make a difference on power bill, but you are saving energy.

 

[Nothinman]

Is hibernation really that much better at saving power?

Depends on how much your PC draws in S3 sleep. Hibernation is completely powered off while S3 should only draw enough to keep the memory, firmware, ACPI, etc stuff on so you can power it up without having to refresh the memory. Hibernation is just S3 sleep with memory also saved to the hibernation file in the case of power loss.

 

[ManyBeers]

My understanding is that hibernation uses no power at all while sleep will use a small amount of power. A PC can come out of "sleep" by itself, but not hibernation. Therefore, all my HTPC's "sleep" and never hibernate.

Not true.
My desktop wakes up from hibernation on its own every morning, and has been doing so for 2 years. A Scheduled task accomplishes the wake-up.
In fact my desktop frequently hibernates 3-4 times per day when I leave the house to do something or other but on these occasions I must press the power button to resume. I have also found hibernation flawless.

 

[Nothinman]

Not true.
My desktop wakes up from hibernation on its own every morning, and has been doing so for 2 years. A Scheduled task accomplishes the wake-up.
In fact my desktop frequently hibernates 3-4 times per day when I leave the house to do something or other but on these occasions I must press the power button to resume. I have also found hibernation flawless.

That depends on your BIOS' ACPI implementation working well, which can't be said for everyone.

 

[AtlantaBob]

There is a sad problem when comes to consumers computers, the info is based on Makrektting ploys and Not on technological terms, and Data.

By standard Hibernation means that the computer is totally switched Off.
Only the RAM is saved to a file in the root directory.

Computer totally Off is the best Power saving.




However you have to start the computer as from Off, and it has to Boot through the BIOS as in regualr power On.

In the last Boot step Windows will load the RAM back from the saved File and the computer will come up exactly the way it was.

I.e. Time wise, the Boot would be only few seconds faster than coming from regular Off.

My sense -- and it's just a general comment rather than measured experience -- is that it's considerably faster for my machines to "awake" from hibernate rather than coming from a fresh reboot. I imagine that a large portion of this is the fact that programs I use frequently (e.g. Firefox, Thunderbird) are "automatically" reloaded from RAM that has been written to the HDD during hibernation, rather than waiting on me to double-click on them to load them (yeah, I know Windows Pre-fetch is supposed to do that, right....) anyway, just my perspective.

 

[alkemyst]

My hybrid sleep doesn't seem to go through BIOS, its just instantly on and maybe a 1-2sec wait while my USB devices fire up.

My fans all turn off (maybe the psu's is still on, I will have to check next time)...my hard drives are off...

The laptop's in hibernation seem to go through BIOS and it's a 20 sec or so process.

 

[Nothinman]

My hybrid sleep doesn't seem to go through BIOS, its just instantly on and maybe a 1-2sec wait while my USB devices fire up.

My fans all turn off (maybe the psu's is still on, I will have to check next time)...my hard drives are off...

The laptop's in hibernation seem to go through BIOS and it's a 20 sec or so process.

I would say that it varies from BIOS to BIOS but yes, in general S3 sleep skips most of the BIOS initialization routines. That's the major difference between the two, S3 leaves enough power on to keep the system memory and devices in a known state so the OS and drivers can put their saved state back and start running without totally restarting the devices.

 

[Emulex]

http://blogs.technet.com/b/robert_h...ybrid-sleep-in-vista-and-s0-s5-explained.aspx

you can setup hybrid sleep to hibernate after a while if you care about battery or if its plugged in just leave it in hybrid sleep mode (it will draw power to keep topped up).

with fast write SSD hibernation is stupid fast