Sleep Vs Hibernate while Travelling

S

Sumit

Hello,

I would be grateful if someone could help me out with this one.

Which is the recommended way of carrying a laptop? Should it be Sleep or in
Hibernate mode while it is being carried around in a case or a sleeve? I
would have thought that carrying a laptop in sleep was safe. However,
recently I had found it had woken up and got really hot -- until finally it
was shutoff due to a safety feature that prevents it from overheating.

Which mode do most of you prefer when you carry your computers around?

Thanks.
Sumit.
 
C

copihaus

I particulary do not use any of those features but Hibernation Mode is most
recommendable as in uses the Hard Drive to save System status rather than
RAM as Sleep mode does. Consider the power usage if you are concerned about
battery life though, as Sleep mode stops the Drive but needs to keep feeding
the electronics while Hibernation requires a full hard restart from cold
with the advantage of saving time at boot time as it just restores your
previous session. I don't really know which of both is better at power
saving but it really depends of the circumstances. In terms of speed Sleep
Mode is ahead just cause the way it was named differences them.

You just said it yourself, Sleep mode could arise the overheating issue
ending up loosing your current session should it also run out of battery
without you noticing. In Hibernation mode you still have the chance of
finding a socket somewhere to resume your work rather than running in the
middle of an airport carrying a hot tray shouting for power ..... for
example.

If really depends on the case. Sleep mode is also faster as it dumps
everything on RAM and is most useful if you move from a coffee shop to a
waiting lounge; hibernation would be more useful if it is going to be a
little while longer until you will be able to use your laptop again, for
which I would just recommend a normal shut down.

I just carry an extra spare battery just in case and swap them from time to
time for life prolonging matters more than anything.
 
C

copihaus

I particulary do not use any of those features but Hibernation Mode is most
recommendable as in uses the Hard Drive to save System status rather than
RAM as Sleep mode does. Consider the power usage if you are concerned about
battery life though, as Sleep mode stops the Drive but needs to keep feeding
the electronics while Hibernation requires a full hard restart from cold
with the advantage of saving time at boot time as it just restores your
previos session. I don't really know which of both is better at power saving
but it really depends of the circumstances. In terms of speed Sleep Mode is
ahead just cause the way it was named differences them.

You just said it yourself, Sleep mode could arise the overheating issue
ending up loosing your current session should it also run out of battery
without you noticing. In Hibernation mode you still have the chance of
finding a socket somewhere to resume your work rather than running in the
middle of an airport carrying a hot tray shouting for power ..... for
example.

If really depends on the case. Sleep mode is also faster as it dumps
everything on RAM and is most usefull if you move from a coffee shop to a
waiting lounge; hibernation would be more usefull if it is going to be a
little while longer until you will be able to use your laptop again, for
which I would just recommend a normal shut down.

I just carry an extra spare battery just in case and swap them from time to
time for life prolonging matters more than anything.
 
T

Tim Slattery

Sumit said:
Hello,

I would be grateful if someone could help me out with this one.

Which is the recommended way of carrying a laptop? Should it be Sleep or in
Hibernate mode while it is being carried around in a case or a sleeve? I
would have thought that carrying a laptop in sleep was safe. However,
recently I had found it had woken up and got really hot -- until finally it
was shutoff due to a safety feature that prevents it from overheating.

In "Sleep" mode RAM is still powered, so that it will not lose its
contents. Disk drives and monitors are powered down. I think the CPU
has to stay up, so that it can handle the "wake up" event, and current
certainly has to flow through the motherboard in order to get to the
RAM. There's usually some kind of LED display that lets you know that
the machine is in sleep mode.

So you've got some current flowing through your machine. That will
generate some heat. If your machine can't dissipate that heat as fast
as it generates it, the heat will build up, as you've seen. I guess
the bag you carried it in tended to keep heat in.

When you hibernate your machine, it saves everything - RAM contents,
video memory contents, whatever - to a disk file and turns itself off.
No current flows, no heat builds up. So if you're having heat troubles
with a sleeping machine, it seems to me that the solution is to
hibernate it instead.
 
M

MICHAEL

Sumit said:
Hello,

I would be grateful if someone could help me out with this one.

Which is the recommended way of carrying a laptop? Should it be Sleep or in Hibernate mode
while it is being carried around in a case or a sleeve? I would have thought that carrying a
laptop in sleep was safe. However, recently I had found it had woken up and got really hot --
until finally it was shutoff due to a safety feature that prevents it from overheating.

Which mode do most of you prefer when you carry your computers around?

Hibernate, mostly

Sleep, if I am at home.

However, sometimes I just shut down my laptop when traveling if it
will be a few hours going unused.


-Michael
 
K

Kerry Brown

Sumit said:
Hello,

I would be grateful if someone could help me out with this one.

Which is the recommended way of carrying a laptop? Should it be Sleep or
in Hibernate mode while it is being carried around in a case or a sleeve?
I would have thought that carrying a laptop in sleep was safe. However,
recently I had found it had woken up and got really hot -- until finally
it was shutoff due to a safety feature that prevents it from overheating.

Which mode do most of you prefer when you carry your computers around?


I power mine down. After a lot of experience with many laptops and many OS'
I've learned that both sleep and hibernation will eventually bite you. As
you've found sleep still consumes some power. You may have some overheating
problems and you will eventually deplete the battery and possibly lose data.
With hibernation if the hibernation file gets corrupted you can end up in a
boot loop where the computer won't start. The only fix is to boot from a CD
and delete the hibernation file. I've seen this happen in all versions of
Windows from Win 3.1 and Linux so it's not OS specific.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top