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sfogliatelle
We Is Whut We Am
Premium Member
join:2002-05-29
Baton Rouge, LA

sfogliatelle

Premium Member

[WIN7] what advantages does sleep have to a desktop pc?

Recently bought a Dell Optiplex 780, 2.3G Core2Duo, 64bit, 4GB memory and Win7 Home Premium.

As my sister is an additional user I set myself up as admin, and log off my account whenever my session is done.

Problem's been that with each waking from sleep (which had been set for 20 minutes), the computer would wake by restarting, each and every time.

The pc is not set up to hibernate. I'd changed the sleep cycle to never (it's a desktop, constantly on while in use), which afforded a much snappier response but I'm curious as to what, if any, advantages there are in setting a power option to sleep of after *any* duration, as opposed to never allowing sleep at all.

Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA

3 recommendations

Wily_One

Premium Member

The purpose of sleep mode is power savings. How much that really means to you on a desktop is up to you to decide.
»windows.microsoft.com/en ··· uestions

(Call me old-fashioned, but I've never trusted sleep or hibernate since many bad memories of the Win9x/WinNT days...)

ZZZZZZZ
Premium Member
join:2001-05-27
PARADISE

ZZZZZZZ

Premium Member

Sleep or hibernate is totally useless on a desktop...........just use your firewall to block all traffic when you leave and shut the monitor off.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot to sfogliatelle

Premium Member

to sfogliatelle
said by sfogliatelle:

which afforded a much snappier response but I'm curious as to what, if any, advantages there are in setting a power option to sleep of after *any* duration, as opposed to never allowing sleep at all.

As Wily_One stated, the advantages are power savings and potentially avoiding data corruption due to power loss if your system was hibernating during an outage (assuming you don't have a UPS).

My primary workstation uses about 238 watts of power when it's idle so it's in my best interests to stick with a 45 minute to sleep, 120 minutes to hibernate functionality...

... and I'm not as rich as ZZZZZZZ

seaman
Premium Member
join:2000-12-08
Seattle, WA

seaman to Wily_One

Premium Member

to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:

The purpose of sleep mode is power savings. How much that really means to you on a desktop is up to you to decide.
»windows.microsoft.com/en ··· uestions

Great link Wily_One, thanks! This one gets bookmarked.

Napsterbater
Meh
MVM
join:2002-12-28
Milledgeville, GA
(Software) OPNsense
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-PRO

Napsterbater to ZZZZZZZ

MVM

to ZZZZZZZ
said by ZZZZZZZ:

Sleep or hibernate is totally useless on a desktop...........just use your firewall to block all traffic when you leave and shut the monitor off.

.... ?. Sarcasm?

Dustyn
Premium Member
join:2003-02-26
Ontario, CAN

Dustyn to Wily_One

Premium Member

to Wily_One
Same.
Hated when sleep turned into a COMA and it would not wake up!

rogersmogers
@start.ca

rogersmogers to sfogliatelle

Anon

to sfogliatelle
said by sfogliatelle:

Recently bought a Dell Optiplex 780, 2.3G Core2Duo, 64bit, 4GB memory and Win7 Home Premium.

As my sister is an additional user I set myself up as admin, and log off my account whenever my session is done.

Problem's been that with each waking from sleep (which had been set for 20 minutes), the computer would wake by restarting, each and every time.

The pc is not set up to hibernate. I'd changed the sleep cycle to never (it's a desktop, constantly on while in use), which afforded a much snappier response but I'm curious as to what, if any, advantages there are in setting a power option to sleep of after *any* duration, as opposed to never allowing sleep at all.

I've seen many Dell's do this reboot thing.

sivran
Vive Vivaldi
Premium Member
join:2003-09-15
Irving, TX

sivran to Wily_One

Premium Member

to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:

(Call me old-fashioned, but I've never trusted sleep or hibernate since many bad memories of the Win9x/WinNT days...)

9x hell, I had trouble with waking my XP desktop up. Sometimes I'd have to hit the reset button. Generally there were no ill effects from doing so, but it was annoying.

OTOH, my XP laptop never has a problem waking up, and neither does my 2k Pro one.
BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium Member
join:2000-01-13

BlitzenZeus

Premium Member

For a long time I ran a software firewall that didn't like sleep, or hibernate so I never used it, however that was during the days of 9x/XP with the internet worms also before windows had a firewall.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

howardfine to sfogliatelle

Member

to sfogliatelle
'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to sfogliatelle

Premium Member

to sfogliatelle
What's your alternative to sleep/standby? Leave it on, or shut it down?

Me, I don't shut computers down, so sleep is very useful: reduces heat and noise (and probably results in a lower power bill, though that is a secondary motivation).

Up from sleep takes, I suppose, 5 to 10 seconds.
dave

dave to ZZZZZZZ

Premium Member

to ZZZZZZZ
A man who adopts the name which is the usual cartoon representation of sleeping... thinks that sleeping is useless.

jap
Premium Member
join:2003-08-10
038xx

jap to sfogliatelle

Premium Member

to sfogliatelle
On my Lenovo Vista system I use sleep 15-20 times per day & hibernate ~2 times per week without any issues. Ever. Check your BIOS settings?

What's this talk of behavioral holdovers from the days of DOS? Nothing was reliable in win98. You couldn't blow your nose without system repercussions. I do hope ya'll now feel safe blowing your noses.

Sleep & boot-from-image problems on w2K & later systems are due to bad hardware implementation or sys builder, not Windows.

Reasons to sleep: noise, elec consumption, fan & disk wear, greatly reduced dirt build-up inside case, shuts off network adapter (unless you implement WoL).
graniterock
Premium Member
join:2003-03-14
London, ON

graniterock to sfogliatelle

Premium Member

to sfogliatelle
Get one of those plugs that monitor power usage. See what it says when your computer is idle. See what it says when your computer is asleep. The difference in those two numbers is the main advantage of putting your computer to sleep.

Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium Member
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30

Doctor Olds

Premium Member

said by graniterock:

Get one of those plugs that monitor power usage.

Do you mean a Kill-a-Watt? »www.homedepot.com/p/Kill ··· 02196386

plencnerb
Premium Member
join:2000-09-25
53403-1242

plencnerb to sfogliatelle

Premium Member

to sfogliatelle
At the company that I used to work for, sleep and hibernate were issues, because people did not understand how they worked. Let me explain.

You are in the office, and have your corporate e-mail application open, a word document that resides on a corporate network location, and internet explorer looking at a web page on the intranet (yes, not internet, but intranet).

At the end of the day, user leaves ALL of the above open in their current states, closes the lid of their laptop (computer goes to sleep), and goes home.

Upon arrival at home, they take their laptop out of their bag, lift the lid, and want to start using it.

Since everything they had open was connected to a file or resource that was no longer available, things either crashed, or errors were generated. End user would then call their local help desk at the company they work for, and chew them a new one, saying that their laptop was having all kinds of issues and throwing up all kinds of error messages, and they lost work (the intranet page they had opened would now not load, and it was an online something or other..think Oracle Financials or something, and they did not save their work before closing the lid).

Reason: User training error. People were told that when your computer sleeps, it will "Return to the exact same state it was in when you put it to sleep". So, to an end user, that means "I don't have to save my work when I close the lid, as it will all be there again when I open it, exactly how I left it, regardless of where I am when I close the lid, or when I open it."

That is the only problem I see. You need to educate the end user, that if they sleep the unit in the office, things may not work right when you get home, and are not on the same network.

--Brian

sfogliatelle
We Is Whut We Am
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join:2002-05-29
Baton Rouge, LA

sfogliatelle to Wily_One

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All well and good according to what Microsoft says regarding sleep "Sleep is a power-saving state that allows a computer to quickly resume full-power operation (typically within several seconds)", but my issue is that this particular Dell does *not* quickly wake out of sleep mode.

While I'm aware that this dilemma hints of other areas in need of investigation (most all of which have proved personally frustrating to say the least), I will defer to any real or potential energy saving for the time being and will deal with the current 2-3 minute delay it now takes while waking up.
sfogliatelle

sfogliatelle to urbanriot

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to urbanriot
Out of curiosity, how would one best determine current energy consumption in watts from their desktop system?

Edit: never mind. Read what graniterock See Profile and Doctor Olds See Profile wrote about such a device.

therube
join:2004-11-11
Randallstown, MD

therube to sfogliatelle

Member

to sfogliatelle
> the computer would wake by restarting, each and every time

That behavior is wrong.

A power interruption, sufficient that the RAM image is lost, would then cause the the computer to return from sleep by using a disk image, but that is not a typical, & while it does take much longer then restoring from RAM, still you return you to where you had left off, as opposed to rebooting.

My current computer has had issues going into sleep, IOW I tell it to do so & it would awaken immediately thereafter, but never coming out of sleep. My sleep issues started on day one, but then one day it "just started working" correctly. Perhaps one of the monthly updates from MS fixed something, or...?

I would take a look on the Dell forums to see if others are seeing the same problem.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to jap

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And reasons to NEVER sleep or hibernate a desktop are to greatly improve its life span. It is stupid to ever turn off, sleep or hibernate (except when your UPS hibernates the computer when the power goes off) a desktop especially if you live in Hawaii on the ocean with no air conditioning to homes. Everyone I know here who stupidly turns off at night and sleeps/hibernates in the daytime their desktops end up with quickly rotted hardware. So, if you own a cheap desktop it probably doesn't matter how you treat it but if you have a $2000 desktop then most likely you want to get 5 years or more use from it. Don't turn off the hard drive or allow it to sleep/hibernate and never turn it off completely (unless going on vacation). Set the monitor(s) to turn the screen saver on (yes, you should use a screen saver) after a few minutes of inactivity and then to turn off (well, new monitors cannot be turned off but you can set them to "breathe").
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

Yeah, sure. Generating heat for 24 hours is preferable to using the designed-in program-controlled removal of power. Rotating a disk for 24 hrs/day extends its life much more than spinning it down. Makes sense.
graniterock
Premium Member
join:2003-03-14
London, ON

graniterock to sfogliatelle

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to sfogliatelle
It definitely shouldn't be rebooting. I wonder if there is something that doesn't like being interrupted.

I did have a computer that didn't handle sleeping very well but did fine hibernating. So I set it to a 3 hours delay hibernate or would initiate hibernate myself. (Which in may case restoring from hibernate was faster than booting up from scratch).
19579823 (banned)
An Awesome Dude
join:2003-08-04

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No... Just shut down!!!!!! (Save power)

Hibernate just wastes alot of disk space..... (In my opinion)
Happydude32
Premium Member
join:2005-07-16

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Re: [WIN7] what advantages does sleep have to a desktop pc?

My two desktops hardly ever get shut down unless the power is out and the UPS battery dies or if I'm cleaning or rearranging and the power cables are physically unplugged, otherwise they're on near 24/7. Never cared for the sleep/suspend feature and now with SSDs a PC takes what about 10 seconds to boot up, versus the longer amount of time it used to take for Windows on a HDD to wake up. The only time the laptop is powered down is when I'm transporting it. I never close the lid and let it sleep or hibernate. It's either fully shut down or fully powered on.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot to dave

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to dave
said by Mele20:

And reasons to NEVER sleep or hibernate a desktop are to greatly improve its life span.

said by dave:

Yeah, sure. Generating heat for 24 hours is preferable to using the designed-in program-controlled removal of power. Rotating a disk for 24 hrs/day extends its life much more than spinning it down. Makes sense.

Is there any science behind your two ideas? I ask because this is demonstrably misinformation and bad advice.

Systems that run 24/7 are running for 168 hours in a week whereas your average work PC is only running about 45 hours a week. Considering that heat, vibration and MTBF is the parts-killer, rather than unload/load cycles, it stands to reason (and as shown in reports from various corporations that have produced the data for the public).

I believe the average cycle count is something like 500,000 so that's, what, close to a thousand years before a work PC drive will fail from powering off and on? Let's say it hibernates a few times per day, say during lunch, you now get around 666 years of usage...

oh, wait... 666 is 'bad' so maybe if we're considering drive failures as it pertains to voodoo, perhaps then we should leave systems on 24/7

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor to Mele20

Member

to Mele20
said by Mele20:

And reasons to NEVER sleep or hibernate a desktop are to greatly improve its life span. It is stupid to ever turn off, sleep or hibernate (except when your UPS hibernates the computer when the power goes off) a desktop especially if you live in Hawaii on the ocean with no air conditioning to homes. Everyone I know here who stupidly turns off at night and sleeps/hibernates in the daytime their desktops end up with quickly rotted hardware.

A what?!?

You're not making any sense....
aurgathor

aurgathor to sfogliatelle

Member

to sfogliatelle
If your computer can wake up sleep or hibernate fine, there is very little reason not to use sleep or hibernate. This is especially true when AC is in use. A fairly recent PC such as yours should have no issue with either one.

Personally, I hibernate my PC during summer time when it's not in use, but it's on 24x7 otherwise (it's one of my space heater )

Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA

1 recommendation

Wily_One to aurgathor

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to aurgathor
Computer rot is a well-known condition in the Islands, along with disk fungus and keyboard dysentery.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

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to aurgathor
said by aurgathor:

If your computer can wake up sleep or hibernate fine, there is very little reason not to use sleep or hibernate. This is especially true when AC is in use. A fairly recent PC such as yours should have no issue with either one.

I entirely agree with everything you wrote here.

I've been using sleep since ACPI 1.0 was introduced and supported with Windows 98 SE (later perfected with Windows Me strangely enough) and hibernation since Windows Vista and I've never had any issues. I've heard of people reporting issues but I suspect it's motherboard quality issues or BIOS misconfigurations.

On the contrary, it works to my advantage as I'm sometimes out longer than I'd like with no ability to return to turn off my PC. I was ecstatic years ago when hardware SAS RAID controllers supported reliable hibernation as most of my personal workstations have 10k SAS RAID drives.