Should I use Stand By or Hibernate or Turn Off?

[Code Phreak]

How does using Stand By affect my computer and memory as compared to Hibernate and Turn Off?
Sometimes after Restarting from Stand By, not all my programs, documents or files return.

Restarting from Hibernate seems to work better but takes a LOT longer to restart everything.

Should I Turn Off my laptop at night when I go to sleep or Hibernate it?
I read that we are supposed to leave it on all the time.

Is this a good or bad idea?

What are the "Best Practices" for what to do when I won't be using it for an hour or more?

Do you shut your computer down at night?

[oracleguy]

Well stand by suspends the system to RAM but the system still requires power and can't be unplugged. If you hibernate the computer it suspends the system to disk meaning you can unplug the computer and when you start back up everything should be as you left it.

Both cause network connections to stop so it can be advisable to close programs that keep active connections (like BitTorrent, Steam, IM, etc.) before using either mode.

On a laptop stand by mode can be useful since it will cause the hard drive to spin down and let it all cool off.

I don't shut my computer off at night but it is also a desktop. Occasionally I will hibernate it, mostly if I know I won't be using it for a day or more.

[Code Phreak]

Very nice info! Thanks!

I made the mistake up unplugging my laptop when it was in Stand By, so I
already learned that lesson, lol, oops.

Good tip about cooling off my hard drive. I've noticed my processors, i guess, getting hot and I worry about this.

This is why I shut down my laptop every night since I am on it 12 hours a day.

I monitor my core temps with a program called Core Temp. Temp for each core is about 116 to 117 F. right now. I'm cheating though. I have a miniature fan blowing on the bottom of it.

It's free at Cnet:

http://download.cnet.com/Core-Temp/3000-2094_4-10794077.html

Works great and no problems or bugs to report.

[oracleguy]

Yeah I am familiar with Core Temp, I use it every once in a while. For a laptop, around 120F for the processor isn't really that hot.

[webdev1958]

If I know I'm going to be away from my pc/laptop for more than an hour I usually turn it off completely. A cold boot takes about 40 secs. max.

While they can be convenient, using "stand by" or "hibernate" can only increase the probability of something becoming corrupted when switching to one of those modes. Even when you shut down some cpu and RAM intensive applications like for image and video editing, library programs remain in RAM for quicker startup next time and I always worry that these or other programs running in the background might not startup properly when coming out of "stand by" or "hibernation" and so cause problems.

Also, although this is a sidetrack, I would suggest doing periodic "cleansing" reboots to free up your RAM if you have been doing RAM intensive work, especially if your RAM storage is not large.

[Apostropartheid]

While they can be convenient, using "stand by" or "hibernate" can only increase the probability of something becoming corrupted when switching to one of those modes. Even when you shut down some cpu and RAM intensive applications like for image and video editing, library programs remain in RAM for quicker startup next time and I always worry that these or other programs running in the background might not startup properly when coming out of "stand by" or "hibernation" and so cause problems.

Has this actually ever happened? I don't see why stand-by at least would, because all it is doing is freezing the RAM--I suppose it's possible with hibernation, though.

Also, although this is a sidetrack, I would suggest doing periodic "cleansing" reboots to free up your RAM if you have been doing RAM intensive work, especially if your RAM storage is not large.

I agree, when RAM is limited this seems to make everything better (it might be placebo but it works for me)

[webdev1958]

Has this actually ever happened?

It happened to me once when I had a lot of applications open (Photoshop, MS Word, MS Excel and I can't remember what else since it was a couple pc's and OS's ago) and I put the pc into hibernation. Also, Trend Micro (antivirus and firewall) was running in background. The pc wouldn't come out of hibernation and it took several cycles of switching the power off, switching it back on and trying to boot before it successfully booted......since then I swore never again.!!! Hopefully with Windows 7 things are more robust now but I'm not game to try .

With "stand by" - what if there is a power failure to the pc while it's in "stand by"? Could anything then be corrupted while in stand by?.....again, I'm not game to try.

[oracleguy]

With "stand by" - what if there is a power failure to the pc while it's in "stand by"? Could anything then be corrupted while in stand by?.....again, I'm not game to try.

Sure it could since if the computer lost power it wouldn't be cleanly shut down. But if your computer has a UPS hopefully it would wake the machine from standby so it could be hibernated or shut down before the battery is exhausted.

In Windows I've used hibernation since it was added in Windows 2000. I don't remember any times where data has been corrupted from using it. I've had less reliable results with hibernating in Linux.

[webdev1958]

hibernate is probably pretty safe to use but that one bad experience, and to be honest I'm not sure of the root cause, has scared me off using it again. I just prefer to switch my pc off completely if I know I am not going to use for at least an hour, especially since a cold boot is pretty quick anyway.

[Code Phreak]

Yeah I am familiar with Core Temp, I use it every once in a while. For a laptop, around 120F for the processor isn't really that hot.

Yes, 120F isn't bad at all but I've seen my temps go up to 180-190F when downloading something with a few windows and Open Office docs open.

[Code Phreak]

If I know I'm going to be away from my pc/laptop for more than an hour I usually turn it off completely. A cold boot takes about 40 secs. max.

While they can be convenient, using "stand by" or "hibernate" can only increase the probability of something becoming corrupted when switching to one of those modes. Even when you shut down some cpu and RAM intensive applications like for image and video editing, library programs remain in RAM for quicker startup next time and I always worry that these or other programs running in the background might not startup properly when coming out of "stand by" or "hibernation" and so cause problems.

Also, although this is a sidetrack, I would suggest doing periodic "cleansing" reboots to free up your RAM if you have been doing RAM intensive work, especially if your RAM storage is not large.

You know, now that you mention it, I have noticed some instability in my laptop near the end of a long workday and after hibernating it 2-3 times during the day for food breaks.

What I noticed was my Open Office docs not opening up after hibernation and Not Responding and I had to End Program.

Also, many times, my cursor freezes up and won't move for about 15 seconds. Then it just starts working again.

I do a LOT of RAM-intensive work and hit a LOT of sites during a day. I only have 2 GB of RAM with XP Pro. I run Crap Cleaner 2-3 times a day to free up some RAM.

Is rebooting better than running Crap Cleaner?

Thanks for your tips!

[oracleguy]

Is there an actual noticable difference in speed after running this Crap Cleaner program? If all it is doing is emptying the prefetch cache from memory, then that is actually helping anything. If you run some program and then close it, it isn't like it can leak memory that won't be reclaimed when the program ends. Now running programs can eventually eat up a lot of memory (I'm looking at your Firefox) if you leave them running for a long time, but that is different.

I'll usually go weeks without rebooting my home computer. And my work computer where I use a lot of memory intensive applications I can go months without rebooting. The idea that a Windows machine needs to be rebooted everyday died along with the 9x line.

[Dreamsabre]

Is rebooting better than running Crap Cleaner?

Of course, albeit slower. Both is better.

Also skimmed over the posts, I remember reading a few articles where people did some testing on hibernating and it didn't look very pretty in the long run. It has a (little) side effect, if I can find it I will link them here. Maybe they were wrong, but their data was pretty spot on for evidence..anyways -

As others have said, hibernating is an efficient way to "power down" and start back up fast with files you had open earlier.

[Code Phreak]

Of course, albeit slower. Both is better.

Also skimmed over the posts, I remember reading a few articles where people did some testing on hibernating and it didn't look very pretty in the long run. It has a (little) side effect, if I can find it I will link them here. Maybe they were wrong, but their data was pretty spot on for evidence..anyways -

As others have said, hibernating is an efficient way to "power down" and start back up fast with files you had open earlier.

I'd love to see the article on hibernating. The more I can learn about the effecte of it, the better. I will do a search for the info too.

In my case, I'm online 12-14 hours a day with a dozen windows, 3 browsers, folders and Open Office docs open and I can't shut down for breaks and lose my open windows. So, I use Hibernate. I've had instability problems after using Stand By so I don't usually use it anymore.

Is there an actual noticable difference in speed after running this Crap Cleaner program? If all it is doing is emptying the prefetch cache from memory, then that is actually helping anything. If you run some program and then close it, it isn't like it can leak memory that won't be reclaimed when the program ends. Now running programs can eventually eat up a lot of memory (I'm looking at your Firefox) if you leave them running for a long time, but that is different.

I'll usually go weeks without rebooting my home computer. And my work computer where I use a lot of memory intensive applications I can go months without rebooting. The idea that a Windows machine needs to be rebooted everyday died along with the 9x line.

I do notice a little boost in speed and less sluggishness after running Crap Cleaner. As you know, it deletes cookies, temp. internet files, History, last download location, cache and several other items that use up my RAM. More RAM=more speed.

I don't mess around with the Registry cleaning part of CC as I don't want to delete the wrong item.

You say you go for weeks without rebooting? You mean you don't even turn it off? Isn't that creating a lot of heat and wear & tear on your constantly spinning hard drive?

I believe it's better (for me) to turn mine off to cool it down and give the HD a break. I don't know if this is necessary. This is not my expertise. It's just my intuition telling me to do this. Plus, I want my old laptop to last as long as possible.

[oracleguy]

You say you go for weeks without rebooting? You mean you don't even turn it off? Isn't that creating a lot of heat and wear & tear on your constantly spinning hard drive?

I believe it's better (for me) to turn mine off to cool it down and give the HD a break. I don't know if this is necessary. This is not my expertise. It's just my intuition telling me to do this. Plus, I want my old laptop to last as long as possible.

Correct, never shut it off. As for the wear and tear, it isn't that bad. HDs can last a really long time. Before I retired the machine I was using for Smoothwall the hard drive in it had been on for almost 40,000 hours over the course of its life. Not all drives last that long but unless the computer has really crappy cooling, it will go for a long time.

You can also leave your computer on but set the hard drives to power down after a certain amount of time. I have this setup, just like you can have it put the monitor into standby after a certain amount of time.

Turning the computer off when you aren't using it isn't any worse than leaving it on all the time. Though there can be some reasons to do one or the other. Like it can be more economical to turn your computer off since it costs power to keep it running. However if you have file shares you use from other computers on your network or do backups or defrags at night, then leaving it on can be easier.