Here’s my take on hibernation mode.
john d hamilton wrote (in
When i switch on my pc from its' hibernate mode it boots up very quickly.
Much quicker than when i turn it off in the conventional way.
What happens is that Windows saves all of the memory to the disk (that’s why it’
s only enabled if you have enough free disk space to store all of your RAM).
Then instead of shutting down, it just powers off. When you boot back up,
Windows reads the memory from the disk file and puts it back in RAM and resumes.
In effect, Windows picks right back up where you left off as though it was never
off.
Since in hibernation, i cannot hear the cooling fan running; does that mean
also that the hard drive is not spinning?
That’s because the whole computer is off. You could unplug it, open it up, add
and remove components. The computer has powered down. The difference with normal
power-down is that Windows did not shut down (it did not quit all apps, clear
caches, etc.)
If that's the case, would there be any reason *never* to switch it off in
the conventional manner; but to always use the hibernate mode?
Hibernation mode is terrific. It is a life saver. However there are some
problems with it. Some apps will detect that Windows has just come out of
hibernation mode and act accordingly. For example, the network connection status
dialog will reset and show that it has been running for a few seconds with a few
bytes transferred. However some apps do not detect the resume and do not act
accordingly. For example, SpeedFan’s graphs get really messed up because it did
not collect statistics during the off period, yet it tries to draw the graph
from the last time it was active to this time (several hours or days later),
which causes the graph to attempt to stretch from one reading several hours ago
directly to one reading from right now. Uptime apps will not detect that Windows
was off for so many hours and will say that Windows has been running for X+Y
hours (X=hours running before hibernation), (Y=hours of hibernation/off time).
Generally though, there are few if any serious problems.
My recommendation is to shut down normally when you are finished for the day and
use hibernation mode when you are still in the middle of stuff, have a bunch of
windows and documents open, etc. and it’s late at night and you’re exhausted and
can’t keep your eyes open anymore, let alone finish up everything before going
to bed. This is exactly what hibernation mode was created for. Save any unsaved
documents (to be safe) and hibernate. The next morning, Windows will pick up
right where you left off and you can finish up, then shut down normally next
time.