When to Shut Down?

I was just reading up on dell's help faq for my 1520 and it describes the three modes sleep/hibernate/shut down. Which do you guys typically choose to do the most when leaving your laptop for a little while?

Do you put it to sleep to transport it or leave it overnight? It seems like dell wants the default to be hibernate/sleep and now rarely use shut down, I'm just interested how you guys typically set your computer when leaving it alone and how often you "shut down" as opposed to just sleeping or hibernating it.

-on a quick tangent: i had my laptop open and on the desktop and tapped the power button, which supposedly should send it to sleep, however it just shut down...anyone know what could be wrong?

 

I leave my laptop on when I am in my room, even if I am not using it. If I am gone for a few hours or more, or when I go to bed, I shut the lid, which puts the machine into hibernate.

If I transport the laptop, I ALWAYS shut it down. I strongly recommend you do the same. If you hibernate/standby, it could come on again while you are carrying it - you could jar the machine while the HHD is reading data and damage the disk

 

Standby aka Sleep.

I tend to have hibernate disabled due to the rumored performance hit after hibernation.

And not only rumored but I find my system to react rather oddly after being woken after hibernation.

So I either standby or shutdown.

 

any of you guys had an issue where pressing the power button would shut down instead of sleep? even though in the power options it says pressing power button/sleep button/closing lid should all sleep it?

 

The power button that's to the left of the lock button when you bring up the start menu.. is that the hibernation button or the sleep button?

 

I almost never do a full shut down these days. If I'm away for a few hours, I'll usually just leave my machine on (screen turns of after 5 minutes) and overnight I'll just put it into Standby.

I only shut down after an installation or update process that requires a shut down or if I'm travelling longer distances.

EDIT: I dunno about the shut down button thing, I just close the lid or use the start menu. I'd WANT my power button to shut down the machine instead of putting it into standby...

 

yea i know that it would be better to have the power but actually shut down but when in the power options its saying it should make it sleep you have to wonder why its not doing that

 

I shut down several time a day.

 

i shut down all the time.never once that i hibernated/slept.standby for a real reason.i always shut down because it gives the WHOLE comuter rest.

 

what i do for both laptop (Vista) and desktop (XP):

restart : upon windows updates or software installations that require it
shut down : extended periods of time i know i will not be using the computer. for example, goin through airport and not using it till later in hotel.
sleep/standby : all other times. at night when going to sleep is where i primarily put my Vista laptop into sleep mode and my XP desktop into standby.

 

shut down, save some energy

 

you save energy by using sleep and/or hibernate as well