8 replies to this topic

[fireside]

I know I do a software shutdown on my old computer, is that the same with a laptop? I've hit the power button and it seems to go into sleep mode. When I turn it back on, I'm where I was when I turned it off. What's the recommended procedure on that? I didn't get a manual for this thing for some reason, just a quick setup guide.

[Reedbeta]

You can usually configure what it does when you push the power button. It's in the Control Panel, somewhere under Power Settings. You can tell it to shut down the computer instead of sleeping. You can also often control what it does if you close the lid, so you can have it go to sleep in that case if you want.

You can also shut down from the start menu...although I don't know where that is in Windows 8.

[fireside]

OK, so it sounds like it's all right to use the power button. Sleep is all right most of time for me. The start menu is a little tiny invisible area in the right corner which works sometimes if you do it just right.

[Reedbeta]

Oh, yeah, sleep mode is fine. It does drain a little power on my laptop, though. If I leave it in sleep mode for a few days and not plugged in, sometimes I find it's drained the battery.

[TheNut]

Microsoft claims that sleeping overnight saves more power than a hard boot the next day. I haven't tested this, but I do like my PC awakening to a ready state in seconds rather than minutes. If anyone owns a kill-a-watt, feel free to share your results. Also, just an FYI to never leave your laptop plugged in with a battery. Most hardware have poor trickle charge systems and actually wear the battery out over time. I remove my battery or AC plug after use. My batteries are still standing strong 4 years in.

[Stainless]

When windows goes into hibernation mode it copies ram into a pre-prepared area of the hard drive.

One thing I have noticed is that this area of disk is a lot bigger than the ram it saves, I don't know why, but my machine has 2 gig of ram and windows uses 3.5 gig for hibernation.

[fireside]

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My batteries are still standing strong 4 years in.

I think I'll do that, then. I'm just leaving it plugged in because I'm using it as a mini desktop.

[geon]

You can also configure what should happen when you close the lid. You might want that to put it to sleep.

[fireside]

Quote

Microsoft claims that sleeping overnight saves more power than a hard boot the next day. I haven't tested this, but I do like my PC awakening to a ready state in seconds rather than minutes. If anyone owns a kill-a-watt, feel free to share your results.

I haven't checked boot up, but sleep for me uses .7 watts. It surfs at about 15 watts. Boot up is pretty fast, but somewhat intensive, but it's a little hard to believe that could compensate for a constant drain of .7 watts. I'll have to do a time study and see one of these days. The trouble is my killawatt ends up in a dark corner in a mass of cords, so it's a little hard to read. I'm going to have a good clean up after I get an enclosure for the hard drive. It's definitely an incidental cost if it's plugged in all the time. I guess I would think about it if I was carrying it and I could stretch a charge into 2 days or something. I don't think that could happen with this one. That battery doesn't look very big to me. I did take it out. Best not to lose capacity in case I have a power failure. I'm probably only going to save 3 or 4 dollars a month, but I like using the least amount of power possible, within reason.