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Hibernation, Sleep or Shutdown – Power mode options
13 years
Image: freedigitalphotos.net
When you’ve finished with your computer there are actually several options for the state that you can leave it in. The various options have pros and cons in terms of startup time, power consumption and memory usage.
Leave it on
You may be running a specific service or application on your computer that requires it to be left on all the time. Some business IT departments require work computers to be left on at night for doing backups and desktop maintenance. Under these circumstances, you may have no choice but to leave your computer on.
I’ve heard some people tell me that leaving computers on actually saves power because the computer hardware is more stressed than when starting up and shutting down than it does if it’s left on. The fact of the matter is that it does use more power to leave a computer on than any other alternative. And the stress on the components during startup is no more than the stress incurred on a computer when doing resource intensive tasks it will be asked to do during the time it is on anyway.
Shutdown?
Shutting down is the complete and full way to turn off your computer. All the services and applications are closed (usually gracefully) and the computer is completely turned off. Your session and the documents or programs you were working on are not retained – but this can be good if looking to reset your session. And no memory is tied up in the process. Once shutdown, the computer no longer needs external power but the startup will take longer because it has to start windows from scratch.
Pros:
- System is completely shut down.
- Only very minimal power is used while shut down for some optional services such as wake-on-lan.
- No additional hard drive space is required.
Cons:
- Session state is not retained.
- Startup times are longer.
Recommendations:
Use Shutdown if you are going to be away from your computer for a long period of time.
Sleep
Sleep is a temporary mode where the current state of your session – all the windows, pages, applications etc you have open – are saved to ram (temporary memory) and the rest of the computer is turned off. This saves on power as extra components such as your fans, hard drives, monitor etc aren’t using any power. But the computer requires a small amount of power to keep the ram alive and keep your details in the ram.
Sleep mode is very fast to resume from because ram is very fast. Typically a session can be restored in a few seconds. The main downside is that the computer must have a permanent source of power and will drain some power over time. If a laptop is running on a battery only in sleep mode, it will drain the battery and eventually, when the power gets low enough it will go into hibernation mode (see below).
Windows can perform maintenance tasks while in sleep mode and network adminstrators can still wake and access sleeping computers to perform backups or do system administration tasks. Some workplaces may require employees to leave computers in sleep mode overnight for this reason.
Pros:
- Fast resume time
- Session state retained
- Computer can still perform maintenance and be accessed remotely if set up.
Cons:
- Requires a small amount of permanent power – will not work for desktops if the power is unreliable or not available for the entire sleep period.
- Can drain a battery to zero if left for long periods of time – time varies depending on the size, age and quality of the battery and the power drain of the laptop.
- Doesn’t reset the computer so any resources are not released as they would be during a shutdown or reset.
Recommendations:
Use sleep if you are going to be away from your computer for a short period of time or if you have a network or computer administrator that requires it.
Do not use if you are on a desktop and can’t guarantee a consistent power supply or on a laptop if it is going to be on battery power for an extended period of time.
Hibernation
Hibernation is a tradeoff between shutting down and sleep mode. In this mode, your session is saved to your hard drive and then the computer is powered down. In this state the computer does not require any external power because the state is saved to the hard drive. The computer will resume from this state faster than when it is shut down completely but not as fast as sleep mode. This mode requires you to have some free space on your hard drive for saving the session state.
Pros:
- Does not require any power while in this mode.
- Session state is restored
- Startup is faster than a fully shut down computer
Cons:
- Cannot be accesses or perform maintenance tasks
- Startup is slower than sleep
- Requires some hard drive space set aside for saving session state to hard drive.
- Hibernation file can become fragmented and occasionally corrupt over time but restarting can usually resolve this.
Aero Shake
13 years
Source: Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganfeast/3850165121/in/photostream/
I discovered, quite accidentally, an interesting feature in Windows 7. Aero Shake.
Basically you can grab any window in windows 7 by the title bar – the bar along the top of the window – with your mouse and shake it backwards and forwards, and it will minimise all the other windows you have open. If you shake the window again, the minimised windows will pop back up. For any keyboard junkies – you can achieve the same effect with Windows Key + Home.
This can be really useful if you want to clear out the clutter of all of your windows and focus on one thing for a while.
This feature is included in the Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Windows 7. Click this link if you want to find out more and see a video of Aero Shake in action.
How to Connect your computer to your TV
14 years
There’s a great post from LifeHacker.com who details how to add attach your computer to your TV so you can watch movies/videos.
Rather than recreate their post, I though I would just post the link here:
http://lifehacker.com/5811209/how-to-connect-your-computer-to-your-tv-for-beginners
Screenshots
14 years
Taking a screenshot is a common task with computers. Sometimes referred to as a screen dump, snapshot or screen capture – a screenshot is an image that is created from a software program or the operating system. It allows you to capture an image of what your computer screen (or just a section) looks like at a given point in time and then send that image to others, it can be saved as an image file such as a GIF or JPEG, manipulated, or printed.
There are several ways to capture a screenshot, often each of these methods depend on what computer operating system you are using and what you intend to take a screenshot of. Below is a listing of all the different ways to create screenshots.
Microsoft Windows users and most other operating systems:
The simplest way to take a screenshot is to press the print-screen (sometimes shortened to PrtScn or something similar) key on the keyboard. This takes a screenshot of the full screen and places it into the computer clipboard (temporary memory). Once in the clipboard, paste that screenshot into Microsoft Paint or other image editor.
Pressing and holding the ALT key while pressing the print screen key will take a screenshot of the current active window, instead of the full screen.
Microsoft Windows Vista (not home basic) and Windows 7 users can use the Snipping Tool (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Sniping Tool) to more effectively take screenshots.
These are some more detailed instructions:
1. Set up the screen the way you want it. Remember that unless you use Alt + Print-Screen (which captures only the current Window) the WHOLE screen will be captured so it will save the task bar and any other things you can visually see on your screen.
2. Press the Print-Screen key on the keyboard to capture the image. Often nothing visual will happen at this point.
3. Open up an image editor or another program that can support images (Microsoft Word or many email applications will work fine). If you’re not sure what to use, use Microsoft Paint (Start -> Programs -> Accesories -> Paint).
4. From the ‘Edit’ menu, choose ‘Paste’ or press Ctrl+V as a shortcut.
5. Save the image and then either attach it to an email or print it out depending on what you need to do with it.
For more Information:
http://take-a-screenshot.org/
http://www.wikihow.com/Take-a-Screenshot-in-Microsoft-Windows