Standby vs. Hybernate

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mac
  • Start date Start date
M

Mac

What's the difference between setting a system in - Power savings: Standby
vs. Hibernate?

thanks!
mac
 
Standby saves any open documents and programs to memory, and then puts your computer
into a low-power state. Hibernate saves any open documents and programs to memory and
to your hard disk, and then puts your computer into a low-power state.
An advantage of hibernate is that if a power failure occurs, Windows can restore your work
from your hard disk. If a power outage occurs when your work is saved only to memory,
your work is lost.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows Vista Enthusiast

---------------------------------------------------------------

:

What's the difference between setting a system in - Power savings: Standby
vs. Hibernate?

thanks!
mac
 
Carey Frisch said:
Standby saves any open documents and programs to memory, and then puts
your computer
into a low-power state. Hibernate saves any open documents and programs to
memory and
to your hard disk, and then puts your computer into a low-power state.
An advantage of hibernate is that if a power failure occurs, Windows can
restore your work
from your hard disk. If a power outage occurs when your work is saved only
to memory,
your work is lost.
Click to expand...

This isn't quite true.
Standby (aka Sleep in Windows Vista) keeps what's in your PCs memory in
memory, and turns off your hard disks, CPU and fans. A small amount of power
is given to the memory, so when you power up it's very quick - just a case
of waiting for the Hard Disk to spin up usually.

Hibernate saves everything in memory to disk, as one big lump - and then
turns off the computer completely. It's quicker to resume than a shutdown
because Windows doesn't have to re-execute everything, it can load the
memory as one. It's not as quick as Standby because you have to wait for the
machine to boot.

The way you defined hibernate is how Vista's hybrid sleep works. Choosing
Hibernate from the start menu will not cause the the behavior you described
to occur.

Hybrid sleep is a combination of Standby and Hibernate.
On a laptop it means if you choose sleep, after 1080 minutes (my default)
the laptop will go into hibernate to save power - or it the battery goes
below a certain amount (10% on mine). This isn't called Hybrid sleep in the
settings however..
On a desktop PC it means when you choose sleep, Windows creates a
hibernation file but puts the system into standby. As you said, this means
should a power failure occur, then the system can just wake from hibernate
instead of standby. This IS called hybrid sleep.

I recommend you disable Hybrid sleep for laptops (most OEMs should ship
laptops with it disabled), as power failures are unlikely unless the battery
goes flat, which Vista can deal with anyway.

The default power off button in Vista will use sleep. This is fine for
desktops, however if you're using a laptop I would change it to hibernate
your laptop, and have closing the lid sleep it (when on battery power) as it
does seem pointless leaving your battery to go down (even if it's only by
10%) overnight just to save 10 seconds.

HTH Marc
 

Even if he was talking about Sleep instead of Hibernate, it does not make
any sense. It "saves saves any open documents and programs to memory and to
your hard disk"? WTF? Saves them from where to memory, Carey??

ss.
 
I have a related question in reference to both Sleep and Hibernate on a
laptop using Vista. While it never did this before, the laptop now wakes
itself up at various times for no apparent reason. I don't know what caused
this, nor now to fix. I need to have it where I am the only one able to take
the computer out of either mode, not the computer doing this on its own.

Thanks,
John
 
I have a related question in reference to both Sleep and Hibernate on a
laptop using Vista. While it never did this before, the laptop now wakes
itself up at various times for no apparent reason. I don't know what caused
this, nor now to fix. I need to have it where I am the only one able to take
the computer out of either mode, not the computer doing this on its own.
Click to expand...

Next time please don't hijack a thread with a "related question",
start a new thread.
 
Sorry, in sleep it will wake up if there is a high priority task scheduled.
After completion it goes to sleep again. This is a great feature for some of
us. Nobody cares if you think it shouldn't wake up from sleep unless you
tell it. The fact is it does. Call it napping if that helps you get a grip
on what is happening. You need to set your laptop up to hibernate. It will
not wake from that on its own.
 
Yet, it does wake itself up in Hibernate as well. This obviously presents a
bigger problem than Sleep, for it could easily wake itself up while in the
carrying case, with lack of proper air circulation, plus simply run the
battery down.

I think the solution would be to somehow turn the scheduled tasks off, if
that is indeed the problem, instead of being told to get a grip and live
with it. This was not an issue before, so there must be a way.
 
If it is really in hibernate, it will not wake for tasks. It will wake for
some other malfunction, like your power button has a short. Sleep and
hibernate are two distinct behaviors. If they look identical to you then you
are experiencing only one. Check your laptop bios that it is properly
configured and that your power button is properly configured. Check the
power configuration in control panel.

The grip I recommended you get is in understanding definitions and
functions, not on your hysteria, and I would never tell you to just live
with it.
 
While it could indeed be a faulty power button, I don't think so. Everything
else works just fine. Likewise, there are pretty distinct options to power
down to either Sleep or Hibernate, so mixing that up is not even a remote
possibility. The problem actually arose when I upgraded System Mechanic 7
Professional to System Mechanic 8 Professional. Everything was fine before.
I have since been in touch with the tech people at iolo.com, but they seem
to be ignoring my concerns.
 
Thanks, that is good to know. So you have checked the 'advanced power
settings' to verify your power button and lid are configured for the proper
state...?
 
Cameron of the microsoft.public.windows.vista.general newsgroup actually
solved the problem for me. Apparently, I was trying to fix something that
wasn't really broken, just experiencing a different behavior than before.
She said... "in sleep it will wake up if there is a high priority task
scheduled. After completion it goes to sleep again. This is a great feature
for some of us."

Even though Sleep is in a low power mode, it actually does the very same
thing in Hibernate mode as well, which is suppose to be shut down. After
Cameron said this, I watched what happened in both modes, and sure enough,
she was indeed right. The laptop would turn itself back one, for apparently
a scheduled task, then go back to either Sleep or Hibernate. Therefore, it
apparently wasn't behaving incorrectly, just different from what it had been
doing before.

Likewise, most everyone else was also trying to help me fix a problem that
wasn't really a problem. That's apparently why none of their idea and
suggestions were working. As I mentioned before, I recently upgraded from
(iolo.com) System Mechanic 7 Professional to System Mechanic 8 Professional,
when I first noticed this behavior. Seemingly, this upgrade put any
scheduled task in the background and would wake from both Sleep and
Hibernate to perform this task, than go back to Sleep/Hibernate. This did
not happen in System Mechanic 7 Professional, which allowed me to put the
computer in Hibernate and take it to and from work in its carrying case. All
I really need to do now is actually shut down the computer, so I won't take
a change of it actually waking up while in transit. This is rather a simple
and acceptable solution now that I know what's really going on.

What has disappointed me though, is my inquiries to iolo.com itself as to
what was happening, but with no response, expect for some generic and
useless information.

Thanks to everyone, especially Cameron, for the help, ideas and suggestions.

John
 
John Sisker said:
While it could indeed be a faulty power button, I don't think so. Everything
else works just fine. Likewise, there are pretty distinct options to power
down to either Sleep or Hibernate, so mixing that up is not even a remote
possibility. The problem actually arose when I upgraded System Mechanic 7
Professional to System Mechanic 8 Professional. Everything was fine before.
I have since been in touch with the tech people at iolo.com, but they seem
to be ignoring my concerns.




"Cameron Snyder" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> If it is really in hibernate, it will not wake for tasks. It will wake for
> some other malfunction, like your power button has a short. Sleep and
> hibernate are two distinct behaviors. If they look identical to you then
> you are experiencing only one. Check your laptop bios that it is properly
> configured and that your power button is properly configured. Check the
> power configuration in control panel.
>
> The grip I recommended you get is in understanding definitions and
> functions, not on your hysteria, and I would never tell you to just live
> with it.
>
> "John Sisker" wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> Yet, it does wake itself up in Hibernate as well. This obviously presents
>> a bigger problem than Sleep, for it could easily wake itself up while in
>> the carrying case, with lack of proper air circulation, plus simply run
>> the battery down.
>>
>> I think the solution would be to somehow turn the scheduled tasks off, if
>> that is indeed the problem, instead of being told to get a grip and live
>> with it. This was not an issue before, so there must be a way.
>>
>
Click to expand...
I have just had the same problem of waking from standby and hibernate after 15 mins. This has happened after upgrading from System Mechanic 7.5 to SM 8 Pro. If I uninstall SM8Pro computer returns to normal. Tried disabling AV and FW and all(?) auto updates, scans, etc but no good. Have enquiry into iolo but no reply yet! Pity since package seems to work well. Any solutions ?
Desktop PC + XP SP3.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top