Standby is good for short shutdowns, because it is very fast (for Windows). It just stops the processor. But the battery has to keep the DRAM alive, so it does draw some power. Hibernate is good for longer shutdowns. It places a copy of DRAM onto a disk file, then completey shuts down all power. The more RAM you have, the longer it takes to hibernate. But it’s faster than reboot. Reboot, of course, rebuilds all the Windows tables and reinitializes all hardware, drivers, etc. I have my lappy set to Standby if I close the lid, hibernate if I press the power switch.
Here’s a silly question I’ve been wondering about.
If you want to take your lappy down the hall to a meeting, Standby uses less power, because Hibernate requires lots of disk access. For my lappy, just shut the lid. If you are not going to use your lappy for the weekend, hibernate uses less power, because after all those disk accesses to store DRAM, and all the disk accesses to restore DRAM when you fire it back up, there is zero power drain.
I was just wondering - where is the tradeoff, when hibernate and Standby take the same amount of power? For example - If you’re going to board the plane, and leave the lappy off until you are airborne, is hibernate or Standby better. How about shutting down overnight?
