My Dell XPS 8700 keyboard has a sleep feature and I am wondering what are the differences between Sleep, Hibernate and Hybrid Sleep. Additionally how are each configured in win 7 Pro?
Thanks for any insights,
Mary
sleep puts your computer in a very low power state. its still on, but will instantly wake up and be useable.
hibernate saves everything thats stored in your ram as an image and turns off. when you hit the power button it loads everything from that image, but takes longer to become useable.
sleep is my favorite. ill shut a laptop and leave it a day or 2 then can just pick it straight up and use it instanty. on battery it can last days on end "asleep" with very little battery consumption
My 2cents explanation:
Sleep saves your current Windows session to RAM - Random Access Memory.
Power MUST be maintained or the Windows session will be "Lost" and you get an error message when restarting the PC.
Hibernate saves your current Windows session to a Hard Drive (HD) file (hiberfil.sys).
Power DOES NOT have be maintained to restore the Windows session.
HYBRID sleep does both a "save to RAM" (Sleep) and a "save to HD" (Hibernate) when the PC Sleeps, so the Windows session can be restored from either sleep or hibernate.
If the power does NOT go out while the PC is sleeping, it will wake up from sleep.
If the power does go out while the PC is sleeping, it will resume from hibernate (slower).
Think of Hybrid as adding an insurance policy that the PC will work correctly when waking up, even if the power did go out during sleep.
I use HYBRID sleep and I can pull the plug out of the wall when the PC is sleeping.
I use Desktop PCs.
If you have a LAPTOP, hibernate might be a better choice ...
Here is a tutorial by Brink with a more technical/detailed explanation of Power States.
Sleep States - See Available Sleep States
My thanks to David and badger for their response and input. After opening the sleep states for my pc it apparently has only S3 which apparently is a limited sleep state. I do not have S1, or S2. Not sure if I am able to access S4 (hibernat) with my pc - will research the tutorials.
Mary
Hi Mary,
I've never seen S2 available, so I wouldn't be concerned with that.
I prefer S3 as it is a deeper sleep state than S1.
S1 can leave fans running, lights on or blinking, etc. while sleeping (more noise/power) and I don't like that...
If you find you do need S1, you might be able to enable it in BIOS.
If you don't have problems waking the PC with S3, don't be concerned with S1.
For S4 Hibernate, you may not have it enabled and that is why you don't see it listed.
To enable hibernate use this command from an elevated command prompt:
powercfg -h on
Here is a tutorial for enabling/disabling hibernate:
Hibernate - Enable or Disable
Having hibernate enabled does use more space on your "C" drive...
You're welcome!
Hope the info helps :)
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