Sleep and Hibernation Settings in Windows 10
In this blog post, I’m going to talk about what it means for your computer to be “going to sleep”, and why it’s different then “hibernation”. I will also talk about whether or not it’s actually beneficial to turn these settings on, even though Microsoft turned them on by default.
As per HowToGeek.com:
"Sleep mode is a power-saving state that is similar to pausing a DVD movie. All actions on the computer are stopped, any open documents and applications are put in memory while the computer goes into a low-power state. The computer technically stays on, but only uses a bit of power. You can quickly resume normal, full-power operation within a few seconds. Sleep mode is basically the same thing as “Standby” mode."
Sleep mode is useful if you want to stop working for a short period of time. The computer doesn’t use much power in Sleep mode, but it does use some."
Hibernation mode is like the Sleep mode. It suspends whatever is happening on your computer in an effort to save power. Again, this is ideal for laptops for situations where you can't quickly plug it in. Hiberation saves the contents of RAM (what is actively being used on the computer, what you see on your screen), to your hard drive, so you can get started from where you left off.
During Hibernation, all your apps or anything else you have open are saved on your hard drive instead of using RAM (memory) to conserve power.
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Please open up the Start Menu, and click the gear icon, or "Settings".
In Settings, click on "System".
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Left-click Power and Sleep.
Then, on the right hand side of the "Power and Sleep" page, under "Related Settings", click "Additional Power Settings."
Then, regardless of the “power plan” you’re using, click “Change Plan Settings”.
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Out of the box, your computer will automatically put your hard drive to sleep after 20 minutes if it’s not being used. I don’t like this feature, and have turned it off. It doesn’t provide any tangible benefit to turn it off, but it’s quite annoying to wake up your computer and have to wait for things like your hard drive to come to life.
According to Microsoft, and I quote, “This uses very little power, your PC starts up faster, and you’re instantly back to where you left off. You don’t have to worry that you’ll lose your work because of your battery draining, because Windows automatically saves all your work and turns off the PC if the battery is too low. Use sleep when you’re going to be away from your PC for just a little while—like when you’re taking a coffee break.”
As for Hibernation, they say, “This option was designed for laptops and might not be available for all PCs. (For example, PCs with InstantGo don’t have the hibernate option.) Hibernate uses less power than sleep and when you start up the PC again, you’re back to where you left off (though not as fast as sleep).
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Use hibernation when you know that you won’t use your laptop or tablet for an extended period and won’t have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time. First check to see if this option is available on your PC and if it is, turn it on.”
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