Windows 7: Sleep Mode vs Shut Down

I just read an old thread from last year on here about this subject. I had XP before I just switched to Win 7. I did not ever turn off the XP. I like the convenience of sitting down and starting to work. Booting each time was too much like Dial-Up. My power supply on the XP machine lasted 5 years, so it couldn't have been too bad. == Other than conserving what I believe to be a small amount of power, is there any other advantage to using Sleep Mode. If I just left the machine on all the time, am I costing myself anything? I have read in other threads that you can click your mouse or hit your keyboard to bring it out of Sleep Mode. On mine, I have to hit the On/Off buttom. It comes immediately on. Should I be able to use my mouse to do this?

Why don't you just try sleep mode and see for yourself how it works? It works pretty great for me. Comes out of sleep with a mouse movement in just a few seconds and goes into sleep in a second or two also. Much faster than hibernation. Saves a lot of power over time . . . good for the environment.

your bios allows two levels of sleep: S1 and S3. S3 is the deeper sleep as it turns power off, yet brings you back to full power in 5-10seconds.

To have the mouse or keyboard take you out of sleep, go into your bios under power management and adjust settings for usb or ps2 keyboard or mouse to wake up out of S3. You can also select whether you prefer S1 or S3

Thanks. The S1 sleep sounds like what I want. I don't mind hitting the mouse and having it awake. I just hate to have to hit the power switch like it is now. That should fix me up.

That's how I use my PC, except that I do turn it off at the end of the day. I do so primarily to safe energy.

If I'm not using mine it's off, less dust that way and I can wait a minute for it to boot up.

I love the sleep mode on Win 7, my computer is on 24/7

I just realized my keyboard had a sleep button, personally I always turn my comp off when nobody is using it, which is almost never. Just tried sleep out and it seems to turn every fan off, does it only keep cache and ram powered?

Sleep puts your work in memory and keeps juice running to it. Depending on the BIOS and if you enable hybrid sleep, sleep may take less power. Your battery dies, it goes into hibernate, theoretically, and your drivers should be up to date. I never turn my laptop off, only reboot it every couple of days or as necessary for updates / software. My desktop isn't used too often so it stays off.

You can get windows to boot in less than 30 secconds. If i remember correctly we got linux to boot in under a minute every time. Which really isn't all that long if you think about it.... =P Windows 7 should be under a minute every time if it's optimized right.