Sleep or hibernate Windows overnight?

Sleep no longer works the same on Windows laptops as it used to. They are forcing a new form of sleep (modern/connected standby) that uses quite a bit more power even in best case scenarios when it works perfectly. It has actually been around a while, but they are now fully behind it and forcing it as the only sleep that can be used.

For many laptops/laptop brands the new sleep mode is a buggy mess though, that does not properly power down fans, hard drives etc -and that problem can be intermittent. You might get it to sleep "normally" (still much more power use than it used to use) sometimes, then the next night it might use the entire battery in hours. Even worse is many people have described how this can happen while it is packed in a bag, causing serious heat issues. I woke up one night to find my Dell laptop that was just on my desk blasting fans at 100% and the laptop extremely hot to touch due to "modern standby" issues. Now imagine that it a tightly packed bag.

As of 2004 update, you can't force the old sleep state anymore so you are stuck. There is a hacked way that works, but it is not an official process (applies a temporary patch to files every boot). My advice is to allow it to sleep only for short periods, and set it to hibernate for any longer periods at all. And always hibernate if travelling.

(you might if lucky have a BIOS option to force certain sleep states, if so use "S3", but this is becoming rare and some manufacturers are patching this ability out with BIOS updates even where it did exist).

nevernotmaybe said:

Sleep no longer works the same on Windows laptops as it used to. They are forcing a new form of sleep (modern/connected standby) that uses quite a bit more power even in best case scenarios when it works perfectly...
....As of 2004 update, you can't force the old sleep state anymore so you are stuck....

It really depends on how new the OP's machine is. That is only true if the PC's bios/hardware supports Modern Standby (S0). None of my 2004 laptops do, so they all go to Sleep in the traditional S3 way. The OP can find out here....

How to Check if Modern Standby is Supported in Windows 10

Bree said:

It really depends on how new the OP's machine is.

Yea certainly true, the post did say that they just moved from Macbook to a Windows 10 machine though so it seems likely to be a new purchase. But if it is second hand, or they are just lucky, then they might have one that is not compatible.

Mine is powered up 24x7.
Not quite 365 ... because there are occasional updates, glitches, and power outages.
But the intent is 24x7x365.

anecdotally I have seen it written hibernation is not good for SSD as is mentioned above. I turn my laptops off at night and on in a.m. I live in an area where power is interrupted for no reason and also there are summer thunderstorms aplenty.
Why not just put to sleep and leave plugged in to power? No battery use to speak of...I dont understand the idea of leaving a PC on 24/7 ... and booting up doesn't put that much strain on the system. But that being said, we all have our own routines and in sharing them here may just learn something.

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nevernotmaybe said:

Sleep no longer works the same on Windows laptops as it used to. They are forcing a new form of sleep (modern/connected standby) that uses quite a bit more power even in best case scenarios when it works perfectly. It has actually been around a while, but they are now fully behind it and forcing it as the only sleep that can be used.

For many laptops/laptop brands the new sleep mode is a buggy mess though, that does not properly power down fans, hard drives etc -and that problem can be intermittent. You might get it to sleep "normally" (still much more power use than it used to use) sometimes, then the next night it might use the entire battery in hours. Even worse is many people have described how this can happen while it is packed in a bag, causing serious heat issues. I woke up one night to find my Dell laptop that was just on my desk blasting fans at 100% and the laptop extremely hot to touch due to "modern standby" issues. Now imagine that it a tightly packed bag.

As of 2004 update, you can't force the old sleep state anymore so you are stuck. There is a hacked way that works, but it is not an official process (applies a temporary patch to files every boot). My advice is to allow it to sleep only for short periods, and set it to hibernate for any longer periods at all. And always hibernate if travelling.

(you might if lucky have a BIOS option to force certain sleep states, if so use "S3", but this is becoming rare and some manufacturers are patching this ability out with BIOS updates even where it did exist).

exactly why I dont leave my systems on 24/7. I cannot use PC and sleep at same time anyway! ....and this pc doesn't support the newer sleep modes anyway...just s3...thanks Bree for how to determine that!

I shut em down at night.

By the time I brew a coffee in the morning, they're all fully loaded and ready to go.

I shut it down whenever not in use.
With a SSD it boots in 25sec.