PC Hibernation

[Yellow Fang]

I was listening to a talk at an IET event the other day. It was about ways of saving energy, carbon and money. One of the cheapest ways was hibernation of PCs. I'd never heard of the term before. I wondered if it meant screen-saver mode, or sometimes like when you leave your PC for a while, you come back to find you have to unlock it. However, I just set the option on my Windows XP PC at the university and tried it. When you shut down, you are offered the option of hibernate. When you select this, the PC switches off with a clunk, which was a bit alarming. You have to switch the on button to get your PC up again and then unlock your PC. When your PC comes up, everything you had on screen is there again. I read hibernation mode takes a snapshot of your PC and stores it before closing down. The first time I tried it, I also recieved an incident alert saying something about a database incident. This is quite interesting. Are there downsides to hibernation? Could it be used to save time in the morning. I usually find it's about five minutes after switching the PC on that I can actually use it.

 

[crazy580]

Hibernation is useful if your using a laptop and your battery power runs out, with hibernation you don't lose any of the unsaved changes you have made (unlike with switching off). In my experience, I can use the computer more quickly from turning on after hibernation than turning it on after shut down.

 

[BSRU]

If you have a solid state hard drive, do not use hibernation mode.

 

[2Loose]

Any connections that any open applications make to a database or other server will be shutdown. This may introduce corruption at either end.

Some computers really don't like hibernate and will refuse to start up again. Many USB devices also suffer the same, for example my mouse refuses to work after the PC has been in hibernate, requiring an unplug and plug back in.

If you know these things, it can be great though.

 

[accountantpete]

Been using Hibernation on my PC for a couple of years now (XP) with only a few minor problems and it does save a bit of energy - I do switch off fully at night though.

As 2Loose says,you can get some weird goings on - mine started disconnecting the internet connection after 30mins of hibernation - but you can usually rectify these with a bit of Googling.

 

[Davidc]

Hibernation is similar to standby but keeps data on the hard disk rather than in memory.

There are some oddities, particularly if you use supposedly real time backup software or databases. Microsoft don't write everything onto the hard drive straight away and the closure to standby and hibernate don't terminate the 'delayed write' process correctly.

I use hibernate most of the time, but manually close most programs before going into it so that all that's kept is the operating system and background programs. Start time is very much shorter than from cold.

It is a good idea to do a full shutdown and restart next time at least one every few days or windows gets very slow.

 

[Norm]

I use hibernate most of the time, but manually close most programs before going into it so that all that's kept is the operating system and background programs. Start time is very much shorter than from cold.

It is a good idea to do a full shutdown and restart next time at least one every few days or windows gets very slow.

This for me too, pretty much, only Windows 7 doesn't seem to need the full shut down.

 

[Keith Oates]

If you have a solid state hard drive, do not use hibernation mode.

What happens if you do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[2Loose]

What happens if you do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing, it is just FUD.

 

[BSRU]

What happens if you do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hibernation mode is a mode to reduce power use and hence prolong the battery, a good idea with normal hard drives. With a solid state drive it saves no energy at all as it is already using less than a standard drive in hibernation mode.

A couple of people at work have just been given solid state drives, hibernation caused loads of blue screens and restarts until they disabled that feature. Our IT people didn't have a clue what was going on.

 

[Dan B]

With a solid state drive it saves no energy at all as it is already using less than a standard drive in hibernation mode.

Less than nothing at all? I'm impressed

 

[BSRU]

Less than nothing at all? I'm impressed

Opps, the same not less.

 

[2Loose]

A couple of people at work have just been given solid state drives, hibernation caused loads of blue screens and restarts until they disabled that feature. Our IT people didn't have a clue what was going on.

We haven't had any such problem at my place. I do know that some PC BIOS' needed an update to stop drive corruption with some makes of SSD though. Maybe related.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Hibernation (in simple terms) dumps everything from your PC's memory (which doesn't work unless it gets power full-time) onto the hard drive (which can handle being turned off without losing data).

It is very useful if you want to keep everything on the PC open while not 'standing by'. I've found it useful to avoid the automated rebooting of my machine on Wednesday nights when Microsoft's updates come out and my PC updates itself (and then REBOOTS without my consent and WITHOUT saving any of my open documents!).

Some problems with hibernation include that you need a large free space on your hard drive (older versions of windows I'm sure forced this to be on your C drive as well, not sure about win 7) to match the size of RAM your PC has (if this isn't there the hibernate option in Windows will be disabled).

I've also discovered that my laptop will not use my mobile internet dongle properly post-hibernate (but can't remember offhand if that's Windows, Linux or both).

Databases and other server connections might not like it, which might be the cause of your error. Also if you hibernate with documents open that live on the server and if they are changed by the server while you are hibernated I imagine it might get upset.

 

[Keith Oates]

SSD is fast so shutting down is not a problem