Does sleeping and waking a laptop constantly damage it?

I'm preparing for exams so I put my laptop to sleep so it doesn't distract me(!) but also so that when I need to reference online course notes I can do so quickly without going through the whole rigmarole of booting up.

So am I doing much damage to my laptop with these day long sleep-awake cycles, and if so am I better off just leaving it running as I study (probably not the best idea! )?

 

Should be fine. I like hibernate, a little longer start up but less power usage. I do not think you are harming your notebook.

 

I do not use hibernate, for my own personal reasons. I prefer sleep, cause it is fast.
I have been using sleep/standby for years, and never had a problem.
Sleep/standby does not harm your laptop.
Remember their are different stages of standby, so if you want, you can change the level in which you put your system to sleep.
Their is a great article on maximum PC on this issue, but its not that important, if you are just pressing standby.
You only need the other levels of standby, if you are trying to put a desktop/server processor into standby. I know from experience that Opteron's do no like to be put into standby, the server based cpus do not like shutting off.

K-TRON

 

My laptop is in my sig, I just close the lid when I want to turn back to the books, lift it when I need to check notes online.

The only settings I have is that when on battery power, the machine will automatically sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity.

 

I have the E1505, which is the same as the inspiron 6400.
I just press FN+esc, and that puts it into sleep mode.
I put my laptop into sleep mode on average 4-5 times a day every day since June, and I have not had any problems.

K-TRON

 

Sleeping and waking is there for a reason . It shouldn't harm your computer, if it does, then something's wrong with your computer already. In fact, from my experience, keeping laptops constantly awake isn't a good idea...it increases the risk of overheating, poor battery health and puts your hardware under great strain.

It is best that you do put the laptop to sleep/hibernate when it is idle, also to unpolug it from the power cord when the battery is fully charged/during sleep/hibernation; like muscles, the battery will go weak if you only leave it plugged in all the time, using it can help extend longevity.


I use hibernate when I expect not to use the laptop for a longer period of time and sleep I use when I just want it to cool down and rest a little.
Also, in Vista, hibernation is a good indicator of lack of defragmentation.

I used to never defrag and then the laptop started waking from hibernation in thje middle of the night. So I defragged after a small problem, and the laptop stopped auto-waking.

[fn]+[esc] launches a small window with a simple description of my PC specs...doesn't put anything to sleep.