Hibernate or sleep or shut down?

oshea1987 · Tuesday at 3:07 AM

Recently after a lot of trial and error I got my laptop to stop dropping Internet connection every time the screen turned off or it went to sleep even though it didn't used to do that. Despite all of the remedies I found, the fix was going to device manager, network adapter, power manager, and then putting a check mark in both of the boxes that say a lot of the computer to turn off this device to save power and the one that says allow this device to wake the computer. Most remedies said to uncheck the one that says allow the computer to turn off this device to save power but that didn't fix it. What fixed it was checking both of those options. Anyway new question. Now I have my laptop to hibernate after 1 hour on both battery and plugged in but I'm wondering when you wake it up from hibernation does that typically make you sign back into anything you had open? Should I make it so that it never hibernates and just sleeps? It's a fairly low end Lenovo IdeaPad with Windows 11. It was made November of 2013. Has 4 gigs ran and 512 I think. Also I usually keep energy saver on to make the battery last longer but in the power mode is it better to keep it on balanced or best performance? Since it's not a high-spec PC maybe I should keep it on best performance?

zbook · Tuesday at 3:41 AM

Please use paragraphs and spacing so posts are easier to read.

One or more of these links may be useful:

Enable or Disable Require Sign-in on Wakeup in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable to require sign-in on wakeup from sleep, hibernate, or Modern Standby for all users in Windows 11. To help secure your PC, Windows requires users to sign in on wakeup from sleep, hibernate, or resuming from Modern Standby (if supported) by...

www.elevenforum.com

Enable or Disable Passwordless Sign-in for Microsoft Accounts in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off only allow Windows Hello sign-in for Microsoft accounts for passwordless sign-in on your Windows 11 device. You can keep your device even more secure by removing passwords when signing in to Windows 11 with Microsoft accounts on your device. All...

www.elevenforum.com

antspants · Tuesday at 4:30 AM

oshea1987 said:
but I'm wondering when you wake it up from hibernation does that typically make you sign back into anything you had open?

Hi.

Shutdown closes all programs and turns off the PC completely. Hibernate turns off (disables) apps and services but retains what is in the RAM, allowing for a faster boot-up. Sleep mode puts the system in low power mode and quickly resumes when needed

Hibernate is a slightly toned-down version of Shutdown. While it turns off (disables) all the running apps and services, it retains things that are in the RAM which includes running (open) apps, applications and data in the process. It is faster than Shutdown and also returns the prior state when starting the PC again. It basically preserves the current state of the PC and resumes from where users left off.

I just let mine sleep and set this:

Enable or Disable Require Sign-in on Wakeup in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable to require sign-in on wakeup from sleep, hibernate, or Modern Standby for all users in Windows 11. To help secure your PC, Windows requires users to sign in on wakeup from sleep, hibernate, or resuming from Modern Standby (if supported) by...

www.elevenforum.com

For me, sleep stops everything, including fans, LED’s, monitors etc. Then resumes with a click of a keyboard key or mouse movement, no booting.
I like to pick up from where I left off, fast, without hindrance. So sleep suits me. The power consumption would be zero unless charging something from my PC while sleep is active.

Helmut · Tuesday at 4:59 AM

Sleep uses the most power, Hibernate the least, Shut down being a combination of Hibernate/Sleep power usage an intermediate value.

If your Battery is old or capacity has reduced to a low level that makes Sleep impractical. Obviously if plugged in that does not matter.

" in the power mode is it better to keep it on balanced or best performance? Since it's not a high-spec PC maybe I should keep it on best performance?"

Better to be on Balanced, as Best performance uses more power thus more heat and possibly fan usage, the gain in performance is very small. So to keep your Laptop going over the years Balanced is better.

krism · Tuesday at 2:01 PM

You would be wise to turn hibernate off. I always do on a new build since 7.
Use an admin terminal command

Code:

powercfg.exe /hibernate off

Then in explorer, check that hiberfil file is gone on C: drive .

Steve C · 2025-04-02T02:15:37-0400

Shutdown and switch off / unplug at the mains plug to minimise fire risk

hsehestedt · 2025-04-02T02:42:23-0400

Just for clarity:

Hibernation does completely shutdown the system. It simply saves the system state and memory to disk first. In fact, once hibernated, you can completely remove all power and when you again apply power and turn on the system, you will be back to exactly where you were when you initiated hibernation including any apps that were running being restored exactly as they were when you initiated hibernation.

In my case, I do a lot of research. I sometimes have 20 or 30+ browser tabs open, multiple simultaneous VMs running, notepad is open, Word is open, etc. When I finally retire for the night I simply hibernate knowing that I will be exactly where I left off when I restart in the morning. No need for me to reopen a bunch of stuff. Love it!

abactuon · 2025-04-02T03:05:02-0400

Hibernate - Laptop
Hybrid Sleep - Desktop
ACPI S3,S5 - for the bad guys.

cheaterslick · 2025-04-02T03:15:43-0400

Personally, I never use Hibernation or Sleep and have them disabled. For me, either the machine is turned on or turned off.

If I'm running jobs in the middle of the night before I go to bed, I turn on that program's auto shutdown and when they're finished, the machine powers itself off when they're done. I never want Hibernate or Sleep to kick in while that's being done.

If I have numerous tabs open, I use Tab Session Manager in Firefox to reopen them and pick up where I left off before.

Tab Session Manager – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Download Tab Session Manager for Firefox. Save and restore the state of windows and tabs. It also supports automatic saving and cloud sync.

addons.mozilla.org

hsehestedt · 2025-04-02T03:59:42-0400

abactuon said:
Hibernate - Laptop

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say here. Desktops can hibernate also. In fact, I use it mainly on my primary desktop.

hdmi · 2025-04-02T05:21:50-0400

hsehestedt said:
Hibernation does completely shutdown the system.

Not quite. A full shutdown, or Soft off is S5, whereas completely off, or Mechanical off is G3. During all S-states (including S4 and S5) the power supply will maintain +5SB to the motherboard and, sometimes, to a few other peripherals. This permits Wake-On-LAN, among other things, to work. In fact, even responding to the front panel power button requires +5SB. It normally provides an amp or two at 5 volts. The only way to turn off +5SB is to either turn off the PSU with a hard power switch (some have one on the back panel) or unplug it.

System power states - Win32 apps

Learn about the multiple system power states that correspond to the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification.

learn.microsoft.com

jimbo45 · 2025-04-02T06:30:35-0400

Loads of issues here. The one thing that's bad for computers plus associated peripherals especially things like HDD's (Spinner type rather than newer ssd's and Nvme's) is to avoid frequent on / off switching.

If you have things like file sharing, multi media serving,Internet web site access, databases with multi user access or VM's on then sleeping IMO isn't such a good idea -- better to leavr computer on until you've really finished with it.

Most modern spinners will "quiesce" in any case if there's no activity for a while plus screen's etc can tiurn off automatically after being inactive for a while.

Modern computers,particularly those great "Mini PC boxes" use very little power when there's not much activity on the machine so power consumption is minimal.

It really does depend on your hardware and whether you are the only user on your machine whether you think it's worthwhile to "sleep" or just leave the whole thing in a "quiesced state".

I know this sounds like a typical politician's answer but there's no "best answer" that's going to suit all cases.

Cheers
jimbo

hsehestedt · 2025-04-02T13:23:38-0400

hdmi said:
Not quite. A full shutdown, or Soft off is S5, whereas completely off, or Mechanical off is G3. During all S-states (including S4 and S5) the power supply will maintain +5SB to the motherboard and, sometimes, to a few other peripherals. This permits Wake-On-LAN, among other things, to work. In fact, even responding to the front panel power button requires +5SB. It normally provides an amp or two at 5 volts. The only way to turn off +5SB is to either turn off the PSU with a hard power switch (some have one on the back panel) or unplug it.

System power states - Win32 apps

Learn about the multiple system power states that correspond to the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification.

learn.microsoft.com

While I get your point, for the sake of this discussion, my description of hibernation was good enough. The point was simply that you could remove all power and still be back on your desktop in the exact state you were in prior to initiating hibernation.

As for features such as WOL, some machines (like my ASUS desktop) can WOL from either hibernation or a standard shutdown, so hibernation makes zero difference in that regard at least.

antspants · 2025-04-02T16:57:00-0400

hsehestedt said:
While I get your point, for the sake of this discussion, my description of hibernation was good enough

So was mine.

hsehestedt · 2025-04-02T17:07:47-0400

antspants said:
So was mine.

Amen!

antspants · 2025-04-02T17:09:00-0400

hsehestedt said:
Amen!

You should hear me explanation for how babies are made.

hsehestedt · 2025-04-02T17:18:54-0400

antspants said:
You should hear me explanation for how babies are made.

Now I am really afraid!

Edwin · 2025-04-02T17:23:52-0400

I power up my PC in the morning and power it down at night.
I don't p*ss around with hiber-states and Windows has never done Sleep properly.

hsehestedt · 2025-04-02T17:31:45-0400

Edwin said:
Windows has never done Sleep properly.

Edwin, just out of pure curiosity, what kind of issues do you see with sleep? I ask only because sleep and hibernate are two of the most reliable things on my systems.

Edwin · 2025-04-02T17:36:59-0400

hsehestedt said:
Edwin, just out of pure curiosity, what kind of issues do you see with sleep?

To be honest, the only issue I've had with Sleep, on my Laptop, is losing network connection, once! I was referring more to the plethora of threads on this forum dealing with Sleep pitfalls.

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