Back in September 2017, we published a post on how to extend the life of your computer. In that article we discussed three causes of computer failure: Heat, Movement and Hibernation. While the first is obvious and the second makes sense after explanation, the third, hibernation, seems to confuse most computer users. That said, we will cover what this feature does, why it is there and reiterate why using it is a problem.
What is hibernation, sleep, standby, hybrid sleep and why does it exist? While these terms can be interchangeable, there are some differences.
- Hibernation is a long term sleep mode, it saves work (open documents) to the hard drive, uses little power and theoretically allows you to resume working faster than if you were to shut down the computer entirely.
- Sleep (or Standby) is a short term sleep mode, power use is reduced, work is saved to your RAM (random access memory) and allows you to resume work quickly.
- Hybrid Sleep is a combination of the previous two modes that is designed for desktop computers to conserve power, save work to RAM and hard drive and resume work promptly.
Hibernation and sleep were originally designed to reserve the battery life of laptops. It was then integrated into desktop computers for power conservation. The idea was noble enough, but flawed in execution. Power consumption and waiting time, though reduced, isn’t significant enough in savings to account for the increased potential for issues.
Putting the computer in hibernate or sleep mode will stop processes needed to run key functions. When you wake the computer to resume work, key functions do not always come back on resulting in some of the following scenarios.
- Black Screen
- Can not progress past log in screen
- Keyboard or mouse doesn’t function
- Start button/short-cuts don’t open
- Desktop icons aren’t clickable
- Can’t access/run certain programs
- Can’t print/printer not recognized
Many laptop and desktop users have experienced such scenarios (or worse) not realizing what caused the problem. For a time, a restart or hard shut down (holding the power button until the computer goes off) can remedy the problem. After an extended period of repeated restarts, files and programs can become corrupted and fail. Furthermore, not completely shutting your computer down and allowing it to cool causes heat-related hardware failure. At this point a costly repair or replacement is necessary, which is why we do not recommend using hibernate or sleep.
If you think you may have an issue or would like more information, please give us a call. Consultations are free and we have many cost effective solutions to keep your computers running smoothly.