Hi Bree. I'm curious to know why you prefer to use sleep versus hibernate when you usually close the lid, could you explain?
Years ago with Windows 7, I used sleep until I discovered my battery was pooched and then switched to hibernate.
Since moving to Windows 10, I've always used hibernate but curious why many prefer sleep.
Tony, here is the Tenforums directions to change lid closing actions.
Change Lid Close Default Action in Windows 10
Know you asked Bree this question but the reason I use Sleep vs Hibernate is because the way I have understood it is Hibernate is recommended when the computer will not be used for a long period of time while sleep is used when usage is stopped for a very short period of time, which I believe is what the OP was asking about and I think others replying were also talking about.
If I am going not be using my computer for a long period of time I either use hibernate or turn it off completely.
For many years it was recommended to shut down a PC (Desktop or Laptop) at least once a day just to clean out the millions of "artifacts" that get created during a session and let Windows start up clean. It just eliminated a lot of real and potential conflicts in the system. These are things like frozen memory addresses, temporary processes, running driver states, and the system state itself (kernal).
Modern OS are much more robust about overcoming these issues and with huge amounts of RAM available we seldom see the kinds of problems we did when we were using 95% all the time, but I would think the concept still applies: Occasionally shutting down the system just makes it run better.
It's like Roy used to always say in the funny British TV series "The IT Crowd": "Have you tried turning it off and back on?"
But wait! It gets complicated (because it's Windows 10). This is an interesting read:
Shutting Down Doesn’t Fully Shut Down Windows 10 (But Restarting Does)
Turns out occasionally Restarting the PC will accomplish the same house cleaning.
Well yes, you do need a battery that's healthy enough to sustain sleep for a reasonable time. How long a 'reasonable time' you want is a personal thing depending on your use patterns. I have several machines for several purposes and tend to switch back and forth between them quite often.
I used to hibernate all my laptops on closing the lid, but then I got my first one with an SSD. Did i really want to write many GB to the hiberfil.sys every time shut the lid? So for an SSD I switched to using Sleep (mainly to extend the life of the SSD). Then I found that for an old HDD like my System One below it reduced the 20-30 seconds resuming from Hibernate to 2 seconds to wake from Sleep.
So now I Sleep by default and only manually Hibernate or shut down when I know that I'm going to leave the laptop unused for a long time. My personal definition of 'a long time' is more than two days.
Just to add my 2 cents worth. I have two towers an a mini and my wife has an all-in-one that are on pretty much 24/7. That way any updates, backups etc. happen while we sleep. We have been doing this for years and it doesn't seem to hurt anything, The only hardware failures I've had I attribute to old age (and a spill on a keyboard) . I have replaced motherboards, CPU's etc. but only because they were becoming obsolete. In my opinion, what ever works best for you is the best answer.
Gary
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