3. Sleep
• This is sort of the inverse of hibernation: most of
a computer’s operations (like the hard drive) are
turned off and RAM is placed in a minimum
power state.
• When you “wake up” your computer, it boots
quickly. This is because your computer is still on
and using power/battery life when its sleeping.
• Use this option if you’re going to be away from
your computer for a couple minutes or maybe
an hour, like if you getting lunch or coffee.
• A sleeping computer is still a working computer:
it’s still running basic functions and using
electricity. After a while, putting your rig in sleep
mode can affect your computer’s performance.
Give your processor a break from time to time
and shut down your computer.
• As with hibernation mode, you will not be able
to use your computer when it’s asleep. Yes, your
applications will still be “running” while your
computer’s asleep, but they’ll be in standby
mode, and can be resumed once you wake up
your computer.
Hibernate
• This takes everything you have running on RAM,
including open windows and apps, and moves it
to a special file on your hard drive.
• Then your computer shuts down completely.
• When you turn your computer back on, it grabs
everything saved in that file faster than if you’d
shut down the computer normally.
• This option doesn’t consume any power or
battery life because your computer is technically
off.
• This option is best if you’re going to be away
from your computer for more than a few hours.
• The main downside of hibernate is that
hibernating and rebooting your computer takes
a lot longer than just letting it fall asleep then
waking it back up. Time is a precious resource,
and you don’t want to waste it in front of a
booting computer. So, only hibernate your
computer if you’re going to be away from it for
prolonged amount of time.
• You will not be able to run any programs while
your computer is hibernating.
