I do not shut down, or hibernate. When I travel with the laptop, it is in sleep mode because the lid is down. It also goes to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity, 15 minutes if on battery (unplugged). Now, I wonder if not being shut down is not healthful to the battery. (I am particularly concerned because the battery is not easily replaceable).
No, being in sleep mode will not harm the battery at all. The only negative on the battery is that you are still consuming a small amount of battery so if you were run in sleep mode for weeks or months of time (when all the time periods in sleep are added up) you will have added a few charge / discharge cycles to your battery, but nothing of great consequence.
Also, note that by default, many PCs are configured to transition from sleep to hibernate after a certain period of time, for example, 3 hours. Once that is done, you will no longer be using the battery at all. By using the ability to hibernate after a period of time you can have your laptop remain in sleep so that it will power on rapidly when you access it again, but when in sleep for several hours, such as overnight, the laptop will finally transition to hibernation to eliminate any battery usage at all.
You need to balance up the pros and cons associated with whatever savings (cost, hardware, etc) sleep offers.
To me, current technology has advanced so much since the days of constant on/off wear and tear on a HDD that sleep is just not worth it (the plethora of posts in multiple forums about sleep not/working in various forms might support this).
I was told that just like many appliances, laptops are better off shut down when not in use. Are there any detrimental effects with frequent shut downs and re-starts? (like turning it off at bedtime and restart at breakfast, every day?)[C][/C I was also told that keeping it plugged in all the time is harmful. So, should I use battery power now and then?
What I know about technology is:
When you shut off power to them, then send power to them to turn them back on, over a long period of time, will slowly make them lose "quality".
Rough Example:
When there is constant energy being sent to a device, it will last longer than
if when there is power being sent to a device, then you shut off the power being sent there, then start sending power, from zero, back to the device.
For Sleep, it's closer to the "Constantly On" graph. Where if you Shut Down and Turn On the battery, it "may" lower its lifetime. That's just by physics, from what I've learned. The jumps from Off to On may slowly deteriorate the battery. But that also has the idea of Surge protectors, in a way.
(This is what from I've been taught. I'm sure there's more information on the internet about this idea.)
I believe that the HP Laptop 17-by3xxx in coolnewyorker's specs is a Modern Standby device, supporting S0 sleep rather than the older S3 sleep. Only laptops that use S3 sleep are by default configured to hibernate after a set time. It's easy enough to check for Modern Standby...
How to Check if Modern Standby is Supported in Windows 10
The power drain is a little higher in Modern Standby as it remains network connected while in standby. This can be turned off though...
Enable or Disable Network Connectivity in Modern Standby in Windows 10
When I got my first Modern Standby laptop I discovered that the option to hibernate after a set time is missing from the Power Plan in a default install of Windows on a Modern Standby device. I like all my laptops to sleep when I close the lid, then hibernate after 20 minutes if I don't come back to them. I couldn't configure it to do that until I had added back the Power Option for 'Hibernate after'.
Add or Remove Hibernate after from Power Options in Windows
So the sleep v. shutdown comparison with regards to hard drives. Don't the hard drives spin down and park when the computer goes to sleep? It seems like keeping the hdd's spinning when in sleep mode would consume a lot of battery capacity in comparison to shutting down the hdd's.
What type of battery do you have ?
If lithium is involved,then shutting down may be the better option,for peace of mind.
Quote
