Question on sleep vs hibernate functions

Hello, everyone!

I'm new here, by the way, so you'll probably be hearing more from me.

Here's my issue: I work at home, which means I'm on my laptop most of the day. I normally have my computer in sleep mode, and I've had this thing happen about three times lately; and the only thing I can figure out is that I can't close the lid halfway or three quarters of the way down. It seems to get "stuck" there or something with no display on the screen and the blue colored buttons above my keyboard goes off and on like it's trying to wake up but can't. So what should my settings be on? I'm up and down a lot, so I need it to sleep or hybernate to come back to me quickly, and I don't have time to log in every time.

Oh, and I would just leave the lid up while I'm away, but I have a new kitten that likes to pick at the keys till she has them off the board. I can't have that, so it's got to close. Any suggestions? What am I doing wrong? I've temporarily told it to "do nothing" when the lid is closed. But it seems to run a little hot when that happens.

Help! And thank you! I'm looking forward to any suggestions. I have Windows Vista on my HP Pavilion Entertainment PC.

 

Im a bit confused. So when you try close the lid the notebook goes into sleep mode, dies or just appears to be dead?

Sleep is probably the best option as its quicker to sleep and wake up, though it will slightly drain more battery/power since its just in a low power state.

Hibernate on the other hand saves the contents of your RAM into your hard disk, so even if you pull the plug while its hibernated, all your stuff will loaded the next time you enter windows.