HP Pavilion laptop - heat & shut down, sleep or hibernate

This might be silly, but I don't know much about laptops and all I know I've learned 'thanks' to all the troubles with my dv6000.

It's been half a year since I had to pay to have its HDD replaced as it died due to excessive heat. (Then my laptop shut down several times a day).

I haven't had any big issues since, but I'm still jumpy about the laptop and monitor all temperatures.

All I've read is that HDD over 55C is bad. (It's a Seagate 160GB)
And that changes of over 20C and hour are bad.

Mine starts off at 22C (room temp) and climbs to 50 in half and hour and tp 55-57C in about two hours and then starts hovering around 54-55C. Is that really bad, and can I do anything besides getting it cleaned? (Though it was 6 months ago)

Basically, I'm asking if these temps are ok:

System switch on temp: CPU 25C, GPU 38C, HDD 24C
Max: CPU: 62C, GPU 70C, HDD 57C
Running right now: CPU: 44C, GPU 56C, HDD 51C

And I'm sitting in a chilly, windows-open room.

Also, in relation to that. I use my laptop all day (switch it on at about 2pm and off at about 1am.) Occasionally it's in use for only a couple of hours.

I know that laptops have 'sleep', hibernate' and 'shut down' options. I don't really understand the difference. I just use 'shut down', but what is the best option for the laptop? (When I use for long periods, or when I'm carring it around and switching on-off every couple of hours)? I'm really worried about the rapid changes in temperatures.

Thanks to anyone who can answer my questions!

 

The Seagate data sheet says 60C is the max operating temperature.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/momentus/momentus_5400.3/

Yeah, it sounds like you're close to the ragged edge there. A notebook cooler will help a lot; while it probably won't make a huge difference for the CPU temperature it will definitely help the HDD temp (because the HDD is closer to the laptop surface, where the cooler's fans will affect it).

re: sleep/hibernate/shutdown...

For a shutdown the entire OS terminates, and nothing currently in memory is preserved. All the power supplies in the computer are turned off. (Well, most of them, there are exceptions...)

For Hibernate, the OS just does a checkpoint - everything in memory is saved to disk, and then the power is turned off (like a shutdown). But, the next time the power is turned on, the checkpoint is read back from disk, instead of doing a normal boot sequence. So everything you had running before is resumed from where it left off.

For Sleep, the OS just pauses in place, after shutting off most of the power supplies. It keeps power to the RAM turned on though. When you wake up the computer it should resume pretty much instantly.

A computer can stay in Hibernate or Shutdown state pretty much forever, and come back at an arbitrary later time. A laptop in Sleep mode can stay intact for tens to hundreds of hours, depending on the battery capacity and the amount of RAM installed. It drains the battery, but extremely slowly.