What is the "sleep button"?

I built my own computer and use a Kinesis keyboard and a HAF case. The case only has a restart and a power button that I can see, and there's nothing like a sleep button on my keyboard. I sort of like the idea of the computer going to sleep to save energy, but the only way I seem to be able to wake it up is to tap the power button very briefly, taking great care not to hold it longer than a fraction of a second. This doesn't seem very practical, but I can't find any information on exactly what signal the sleep key sends, or if there's a way to mimic it with a programmable keyboard or with a key combination. All of the stuff on the internet seems to assume that people have computers or keyboards with sleep keys on them, even though I've never actually seen a computer that has something like this.

Should I just deactivate this sleep feature?

logicearth said:

Does the Power Management not allow you to change what the power button does?

Yes, I can do that. I'm a bit reluctant to set the power button to "sleep" because in the event of a freeze I'd have to unplug the computer. I suppose I could just use the reset button.

simmo said:

I avoid using the sleep/hibernate state on my PC..have had issues with Windows when it "wakes up"...it sometimes seems to not "wake up" or be "half asleep" when it does...My rig is number crunching on "climate.net" 24/7 so it is never shut down.
My policy is when I'm done I turn it off and if it freezes/crashes w/e then reset it or w/e is necessary at the time.

I thought it looked like a good idea to cut down on my power usage, but started having problems with my USB keyboard and mouse so shut it off. I also noticed that some processes that I left running hadn't advanced very much when I came back. Suspect the "sleep" thing put them in limbo. This is not a good thing. These sleep options must be intended for laptops.