Shutdown vs Sleep vs Hibernate

iruul

I've always wondered if there was a difference between shuting down, sleeping, and hibernating a computer on the overall long term health of the computer. I have a vista laptop, and shutting down, rebooting it, and turning on all my programs takes a long time. Hibernating takes equally as long but at least my programs remain on. Sleeping it is the easiest and quickest solution, and hence I rarely "turn off" my computer. Instead I just put it to sleep when I'm not using it. Is it bad to never shutdown a computer and instead just put it to sleep? Do I need to shut it down at all?

Omnutia

If you're just going to bed overnight and waking up to use it in the morning then you're probably fine just putting it into suspend (Provided it's connected to the mains.). On battery, your mileage may vary.

I'm not sure how hibernate is going effect your computer's hard drive as it will write a file the size of your RAM to the hard drive each time you set it to hibernate. Probably best kept hibernate for when you want to move your laptop but are working on a bunch of things you don't want to close.

You'll probably want to shut down your computer properly every few days or so (Say, if you aren't going to use it for more than 12 hours.) just to get rid of the build up of stuff in memory.

sK0pe

I have a desktop and haven't shut it down over the last year, there's obviously been those times when it's auto updated and reset or asked to be reset, I haven't seen any issues (other than when I took to the inside of the case with a vacuum cleaner after some dust gathered in the CPU and north bridge heatsinks).

Google is your friend.

Omnutia beat me, power cycle every few days too, plus run your battery down occasionally - depending on what type of laptop you've got and what you're using it for.

Jason

Every time your hard drive spins up or down you are shortening its life.

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I have a vista laptop, and shutting down, rebooting it, and turning on all my programs takes a long time.

Solution: Don't fucking put Photoshop in your autorun folder. Next problem.

Omnutia

I have a vista laptop, and shutting down, rebooting it, and turning on all my programs takes a long time.

Solution: Don't fucking put Photoshop in your autorun folder. Next problem.

And now, back to the topic at hand.

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And now, back to the topic at hand.

*pat pat*

Vista on this 1Ghz laptop booted perfectly fine, and in normal time. It would just become unresponsive after 5 minutes. Thus I suspect the problem is just shit starting that should never start at all. Also, exaggeration on the impatient OPs part.

Omnutia

*pat pat* Vista on this 1Ghz laptop booted perfectly fine, and in normal time. It would just become unresponsive after 5 minutes. Thus I suspect the problem is just shit starting that should never start at all. Also, exaggeration on the impatient OPs part.

Wow Nineless, your twelve year old impression is getting better every time I hear it.

If you actually managed to start Vista on a 1GHz processor, you are totally awesome.

WindUpBird

you are totally awesome.

If not just a goddamned wizard.

theknoxinator

I personally only use sleep mode, but I have a Mac, not Vista. The memory does get full up if left on for a long time, though it usually takes a few weeks for that to happen.

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If you actually managed to start Vista on a 1GHz processor, you are totally awesome.

Sorry to break it to you, but that wasn't my work. It was pre-installed. Could you scale your "DERP DICK" down a bit? It's not making any sense, something which we know you sometimes can.