On "Sleep" and mobility

Hi...

I have recently found myself in more meetings that I really wish to be in. Naturally, during those meetings, I use my ThinkPad and MS OneNote 2010 (generally). When the meetings are at my location (at my office) the matter is simple - I put the ThinkPad to sleep and fire up the machine when required. However, sometimes (increasingly often), the meetings are scattered around the city and sometimes, I take short flights (45 mins) to get to a meeting location and return within a couple of hours. During the latter times, I shut down the ThinkPad and then need to cold-start at the meetings. This last bit takes time (well...around 30 secs or so).

Btw, all of this running off the battery and I don't connect to the power outlets - its too damn inconvenient at times, if you know what I mean!

I was wondering if I can keep the machine in sleep mode for longer times for the day - say for 8 - 9 hours - with intermittent powerup (not connecting to the power mains). Would this in anyway progressively kill the battery? I am asking this because returning from "sleep" mode is a 1-2 sec affair and all programs are primed to open up near instantly. Also, is "hibernate" a better option that "sleep" under these circumstances?

Your views and advise would be welcome. Thanks.

Note: I realize that this is not exactly a ThinkPad/ Lenovo question, but since it is the machine I use, I thought I'd put the question here. Mods, if this is a problem, please let me know and I'll repost in the appropriate location, else, please feel free to relocate (or delete?) the post. Thanks.

 

Hibernate is a far better option than sleep, because the data is cached to the HDD, and the machine is effectively off (Therefore, not draining power). However, it will take just as long to start up, possibly longer if you have some hefty programs cached when you hibernate the unit.

I use sleep mode almost exclusively, and have with just about every Thinkpad I've owned. It will resume far quicker, and as you said, all program states are saved. I only shut down/restart to change operating systems. I can't speak on whether it kills the battery any faster, but at least in my experience, I've seen no excessive ill effects. Even after being in sleep mode for more than 9 hours overnight, I can pick up right where I left off - a far preferred option, rather than rebooting all my virtual machines.

 

@ZeroKnight...

Thanks. Like you, I also think the "sleep" option is best and was wondering about the effects on the battery. It would be great if the ill-effects are minor because then I would be willing to trade of a bit of battery longevity for virtually instant-starting.

 

get an SSD and hibernate like a champ

 

I hear you, but for me, at the moment, the SSD option is too expensive. But I hear that the prices will most likely fall sometime later this year. Maybe then would be an option. It could also be an option when I get a new machine later this year - if it comes preinstalled, that is (unlikely at the possible locations that I can buy the machine from at the moment).

 

ya wait till intel gen 3 comes out. ssds are still new. the price hasnt fallen much, unlike ddr3 memory, the 8gbs fell from $800 to 100 in less than 2 years

 

Sleep is the same thing as if it was on the entire time, except now the heat won't deteriorate the battery "as much". So my guess is the damage to the batter is minor, keep in mind I never tried this; it is my educated guess. I've read heat is what deteriorates batteries and full recharge/discharges is what ruins batteries. So if put your computer to sleep no heat, but it will discharge. The rate of discharge is very low however, again a minor effect, just remember to do partial charges at 20 or so percent...well that's what the battery notebook guide says. It can be found in the sticky in the hardware section.

What line of work do you do actually, just curious sounds exciting.

 

Thanks. I'll recheck the relevant sticky. So, if I am understanding you correctly, when the machine is in "sleep" mode, it generates very little heat - though it is actually on (in a very low power state, which accounts for the gradual drainage of the battery).

I work in R&D Consulting. Exciting? Sometimes. Tedious? Often.

 

sleep means enough power to keep the RAM and some peripherals on. hibernate means shift stuff from the ram into your HDD and turn it off

 

Now this is the first compelling reason for me to invest in an SSD. I'd love to see a wake-up time comparison from hibernation with a similar load to what I run.

 

OK. Thanks. So, obviously the "sleep" mode would generate some heat while hibernate would not? I just don't want the machine overheating - especially, when it is in my bag and I am moving around.

Edit: Can any of these peripherials be forced shut down? Like maybe the DVD bay? Or, some other stuff that I don't know about? Thanks.

 

technically it will but it will be very little to neglible. my laptop is on sleep always, sometimes over 24 hour periods and kept in the bag during the weekends and no heat issue at all.

yea some of them can, like the wifi and WWAN can etc. Its pretty minimal, the fan is off and HDD wont run, screen is off obviously etc

 

Sounds good. Thanks.

 

For me, hibernate resume takes about as long or slightly longer than a cold boot, with my Intel X-25M 80GB SSD.

 

Getting from sleep (suspend) takes my R61 about 2 sec
While in suspend, CPU is not working, so there is no heat at all and battery usage is about 1% for 1h or so.

 

sleep makes sense when you're on AC and dont want to shutdown, just close the lid and job done. Once you get back to your laptop, open the lid, and you're in the system again as it was before closing the lid.

Having laptop on sleep mode, in the bag or on the plane, is not good at all. I've had on my work laptop HP an incident when it woke up itself and laptop was running while in bag! It's a serious problem, could lead to overheating and fire. Don't mess with that. Having laptop on the sleep mode on the plane is against the safety as well - it's technically swichted on during the whole flight - against the rules, no laptop to be used during take offs and landing.

My opinion is, if you absolutely have to, put it on sleep, if not, simply shut it down...

 

This is exactly what prompted my question in the first place. I have heard/ read of such incidents, but was not sure. TBH, I also had not thought about the airplane-related issue. Thanks for flagging it.

So much for near-instant on capability I guess!

 

Read thru the posts and let's say this. My laptop goes to sleep every night and after 8-9hrs (while i sleep) the next morning i wake up i've only lost 6% during the sleep session. So for your 45min trips sleep would use less than 1% of battery, this is the situation sleep was intended for. In the case of Windows Vista and 7 which has hybrid sleep would work even better. When your meeting is over you just close the laptop and then it goes to sleep. If the laptop is in sleep state for a long time it "wakes up" after 1hr to hibernate in order to conserve more power. To me the benefit of instant on even after 2-5hrs is not worth it to let it sleep.

As for SSD being a benefit, while it technically would wake up much faster after each hibernation you gotta think it's gonna be writting 2-4GB (or more depending on RAM) each time you wake up the laptop again. If you are doin 40GB of writes per day (10 wakeups) then you'll be up to say a couple TB in no time and burn out the SSD. In that case SLEEP would probably be even better as SSD have super low "sleep" states and don't have spinup power draws like HDDs do.

To Anarti, you should do a serious laptop check and see what's causing your laptop to wake up and update said drivers.

Code:

command prompt
type = "powercfg -lastwake" (no quotes)

That will tell you what's waking the system each time and then you can get it fixed. My laptop has NEVER woken up during sleep for anything.

Generally if you have a properly cooled laptop even the system is in a laptop bag and it wakes up it should still NEVER overheat, not even close to "catch fire". If you are worried about such thing send it back!

 

I fly to the offshore rigs in the choppers and I always carry a laptop with me (I'm working on it).

During checkin at the heliport it's unacceptable to leave laptop to the luggage in sleep mode (still a chance of fire). It has be to switched off.

Security is always switching on and off the computer entirely. This is a part of safety beacuse.....you never know.

I would sh*t myself knowing that my laptop could switch on in the luggage part of the chopper, overheat and take fire, couple houndred meters above freezing North Sea water.

 

I have a SSD and waking from hibernation takes longer than a cold boot usually. Perhaps they are equal in time. I stopped hibernating since I read writing all that information to your SSD is not good for the life of the SSD.

In regards to sleep with a regular HD, I thought it was a bad idea to have a computer in sleep when you are moving place to place?

 

Well at least you could use the laptop to keep you warm for a bit (kidding, definitely wouldn't want that to happen). And in that case, since the helicoper isn't flying that high it's a quick toss out the window to cool it down i'd actually be more worried about the pilot than any of my devices causing issues. Not saying it doesn't happen and it can happen almost anytime too!

However, while I understand you got rules to follow as do I but laptops don't catch fire, their batteries do Even if you shut off the laptop and remove the battery, the chemical reaction inside the battery still occurs so faulty batteries would be to blame then. A laptop overheating would just shut down before ever catching on fire unless the battery is the one that starts the fire.

WHY? I can't think of any logical reason?

 

First of all, if a laptop is in sleep mode, it shouldn't be waking up unless there are settings that are making it do so (ie, wireless access, waking up to go to hibernate but failing to do so, etc). Even if that happens, however, a laptop will not overheat and catch fire - at most, it'll overheat and switch itself off, and even that's rare.

Technically, that may be the case, but really, I doubt anyone really cares. With how long some smartphones take to turn on, most everyone doesn't turn them off on the plane, and instead use airplane mode. Most people with laptops don't switch them off after using them on the plane either, they just close the lid and put it in standby.

Basically, my bottom line is this: sure, if you want to be extra careful (or if you do not want to lose open data on RAM in case of power failure), shutdown or hibernate. Otherwise, sleep is fine, and won't cause any issues.

Power to the HDD or SSD is cut during standby anyway, so it makes no difference whether you have an SSD or conventional HDD when the laptop is in standby. That only really matters when the laptop is powered on (and even then, most modern laptop drives can take a fair bit of abuse).

 

I use to sleep when moving between locations or classes on my college campus, also sleep while in class where I do not use my notebook. I used to shut it down every time but that took too long.

Standby definitely does have a noticeable power drain. For example, I left today fully charged at 96% on sleep. When I powered it up for the first time about 2 1/2 hours later it was at 92%. It's not bad at all though.

 

Well...I had one of those days, which involved flying out for a meeting and then back again. I was on a commercial flight - so no different security procedures.

My machine was charged to 100% (but at 86% capacity as Power Manager tells me). I switched it on at my desk at home. Worked on it (connected to the mains for a while), put it to sleep and unplugged it. When I packed my bags, I made sure NOT to include the power brick. (my back up was a thumb drive with all the files that I needed). I reached my workplace. The laptop was in sleep mode and in the bag - I did not power up. Say for 3 hours. I reached the airport (quite late) and rushed through security. At my location, you have to take the machine out of your bag and put it in a tray. I deliberately left the machine in sleep more and put it through the xray. I passed through. I then asked the security guy about it. He seemed more interested in sending me down my aerobridge than in answering my question! He just told me "don't worry about it"!!!! Anyways, I boarded the aircraft and asked a cabin crew member. She was absolutely insistent that I switch of the laptop totally. When I tried to compare it with the "airplane mode" on mobile phones, she insisted "even that was not allowed on flights". (I know this to be patently untrue). The irony is that if I wouldn't have asked her, no one would have even known that my machine was in sleep mode. Anyways, I just switched off as the aircraft taxied onto the runway and under the intrusive supervision of the cabin attendant. But before I switched off, I noticed that Power Manager was reporting a charge level of 98%. This means - and it is all very crudely accounted for - that over a period of roughly 4 (but less than 5) hours, my machine lost 2% of its charge.

I felt too lethargic to try the same thing on the way back (plus there were a lot of bothersome colleagues around me!)

Cheers!

Edit:

As much as I would love to have a near-instant "on" facility, I don't think this "sleep mode" is going to work. I read someplace (don't quite remember where) that LG had a laptop that had this "instant on" (but in a very restricted way - like for emails, music/ media and maybe something else) feature. I think I had seen an ad for it somewhere. But I have not heard of this on any of the laptops that I am familiar with - but then again, I don't know too much about these things!

 

I've used sleep only for many many years and only once had my laptop get hot due to it powering on during flight. That was about 10 years ago.

Somehow the lid opened and it didn't re-sleep. I think it was a non-thinkpad and didn't have a latching lid.

As long as you have the laptop set to self-sleep after 10 mins of inactivity when on battery, it would re-sleep itself before it became a risk anyway.

As for battery wear, never had to replace a battery yet on a TP. The ability for the laptop to wake in a couple of seconds makes it so much better than hibernate, which is so slow for 8GB RAM.