Leaving a laptop on

[Zylstra]

It seems that Microsoft is recommending that, instead of turning your computer off, you leave it in sleep mode. And if you don't plan on using it for more than... about 4 days, you put it in Hibernate.

Is this a good or bad idea?
Admitfully*, it would be nice if I just kept this thing in Standby, but, I know that in older computers at least, this isnt a good thing. (This laptop is from March 2007)

I just wanted to get more advice before I went ahead with it. I can make it so that if its on for more than 24 hours, it will shut itself off.

* = No, Admitfully isnt a word.

[unlovedwarrior]

my laptop is on all the time until i decide to give it a break and its from last september

[Zylstra]

my laptop is on all the time until i decide to give it a break and its from last september

Well, I know computers (especially laptops) shouldent be left on all the time, its very wearing on the computers components, but sleep mode is supposed to be safe for those components. I'm just not sure how well Sleep really protects those components.
My cousins old laptop is an example of what happens to a hard drive for a laptop that gets left on all the time, when a virus sneaks onto the computer: It melts and cracks a desk in half. (It really put a big old crack in the desk, those things are hazardous)

[unlovedwarrior]

dunno research

[Calum]

Personally, I don;t like Sleep or Hibernate modes, a lot of computers have issues when waking up from them.
This is usually due to drivers or hardware not being fully compatible with these power saving states.
Example: when I wake my laptop up from Hibernate, it usually gives me a BSoD.  When I wake it up from Sleep, it is very slow until I reboot.
My advice is to just shut it down when you're not using it.

[chriscool9]

my laptop is on all the time until i decide to give it a break and its from last september

Your laptop hasn't been turned off for over a year?!

Chris

[michaewlewis]

I have used hibernate since I got my laptop in 2003. There has only been a problem with it once or twice.
I think as long as you're using windows xp or probably vista, you're not going to have a problem with hibernate or sleep mode unless it's an old computer. Microsoft and most hardware vendors have these modes mastered.
If you're using windows 2000 or earlier, don't trust it... Period. I've rarely had a good experience with any earlier OS entering and exiting a low power state.

[Zylstra]

Hmm

I haven't really ever had Hibernation problems (Excluding Linux) or Sleep problems (also excluding Linux)
(And Linux people complain when hardware isn't tailored to their needs...)

Well, I have lost my Hibernation data a few times, but I never completely rely on it anyways.

We shall see...

[Panda25]

I heard somewhere that if you're not going to be using your computer for three hours or more you should turn it off.  I haven't really heard anything about putting it into hibernation.  I wonder if there are different rules for laptops?  I don't think leaving any kind of computer on all the time is a good idea.  Like everyone else has said, that would really wreak havic on the internal parts.

[Computer Hope Admin]

Leaving a laptop on all the time is no different than a traditional desktop computer. This issue is covered in the below document.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000390.htm

However, your question is about putting the computer into a standby mode. Based off personal experience and a lot of observations of laptops in the past I'd say that there would be no harm in putting your laptop into a standby mode each time you're done working with it. I worked with an HP laptop extensively for 2-3 years and had it go into a standby mode at least once (usually more) daily and it had no issues until I broke the display.

As mentioned earlier the only potential problem you'll encounter is the computer not recovering from standby. Although this was more of an issue in the past and today isn't that common of an issue.

All that being said, it's still a good idea to occasionally reboot the computer. Putting your computer into standby does not clear the memory or refresh it like a reboot will. So if you're putting your computer into standby without ever rebooting it I'd still recommend at least rebooting it 1-2 times a month or if the computer starts acting slow.

Good question. I'll have to add this to the site.

[Zylstra]

Well, I'll check out some of my power saving features and see what I can come up with, I might as well just keep it in Standby then, I guess.

Vista has Hybrid standby, and that should protect against problems with Standby crashing.
We shall see....

[patio]

My desktop benchtest machine is on 24/7 and gets re-booted once a day...i can't think of a piece of hardware over the years that i could attribute failure to in this scenario.

That being said if i currently had a laptop i would simply power it down when not using it for any length of time...

They are 2 different animals.

[Comp Guy]

I leave my computer on all day (unless I'm at school, where it's in my backpack so I can't have it on), and put it in sleep at night. Every once in a while it will freeze when going into standby, and I have to restart it. I also restart when it goes really slow or when a program requires it. But it's a fast computer so I don't have vary much trouble with it going slow.