[Ferrante]

I have an XP machine and it takes forever to boot up. I have been using standby and like it as it is right there, no waiting, when I hit the mouse. What is the difference between hibernate and standby and which is better to use and why, please? As I said, I love being able to sit down and not have to wait for a complete bootup. Also, are there any dangers on using either hibernate or standby as opposed to shutting the unit down? Lastly, if I continue to use the sleep mode(s), should I at least turn off my internet cable box and separate router? Thanks in advance for your help.--Mark

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Hibernate takes a complete copy of what's happening at that point in time, writes it to the hard drive then shuts off. You can disconnect the power, leave it forever and a day, switch it on and it'll come back to that point.

Standby is low-power usage. Put a machine into standby, disconnect the power and the machine will just simply load up again from a cold boot when you do switch it on again. It's only marginally better than just flicking the switch at the wall. Most machines go into standby by default if you leave them long enough, as its whole purpose is you wake it up by moving the mouse.

Not all devices like going into standby and not all devices work after a machine comes out of hibernation. Therefore depending on your hardware configuration there may be no benefit to either of these. A better solution may be to investigate why the machine takes an extended period to load.

Edited by Neil Jones, 27 September 2009 - 05:13 AM.

[Neil Jones]

Hibernate takes a complete copy of what's happening at that point in time, writes it to the hard drive then shuts off. You can disconnect the power, leave it forever and a day, switch it on and it'll come back to that point.

Standby is low-power usage. Put a machine into standby, disconnect the power and the machine will just simply load up again from a cold boot when you do switch it on again. It's only marginally better than just flicking the switch at the wall. Most machines go into standby by default if you leave them long enough, as its whole purpose is you wake it up by moving the mouse.

Not all devices like going into standby and not all devices work after a machine comes out of hibernation. Therefore depending on your hardware configuration there may be no benefit to either of these. A better solution may be to investigate why the machine takes an extended period to load.

Edited by Neil Jones, 27 September 2009 - 05:13 AM.

[Broni]

Hibernate or Standby?, Which is better?

If it's desktop, don't use any.
They never work seamlessly.

[Ferrante]

A better solution may be to investigate why the machine takes an extended period to load.

Can you tell me what would be the best way to go about that? I have so many processes running and I am not sure what I should have at startup and what can be eliminated and only used when needed? Thanks.

[RCguy]

I've always been skittish of hibernate ... too many problems 'waking up' was my experience. But to be fair, diff computers react differently to it I imagine. Standby works great for my laptop, except now and then I have one program that doesn't always like to re-establish a communications driver and I have to reboot. So I shutdown that program before I go into standby, then restart it.