Sleep mode question...real simple

[dvader]

I did a search on sleep vs. shutdown and learned what I needed to about it. But now I wonder why people using Windows don't do the same thing?

On my Windows there's an option for Standby and Hibernate. Why don't PC users standby or hibernate their PCs like the way Mac users do?

Do Macs sleep much better than PCs?

Actually, does anyone know the difference between standby and hibernate?

 

[srf4real]

I believe it's about security, especially with a pc permanently connected to the inter-webs. Macs won't run windows malware so for now, it's ok for them to take a little nap without getting molested.

 

[PlaceofDis]

also, i believe the Windows hibernate and standby aren't as instant as the OS X method of sleeping.

 

[heehee]

I put my PC destop to sleep. I hardly shut it down.

 

[pjarvi]

Personally I can't stand the pulsating LEDs. Occasionally, I will put my Macbook to sleep when I know that I will need to check something first thing in the morning. When I do that I put something in front of the LED to cover it up. It never blocks all of the light though, so most nights I just do a shutdown. I wish they would make an option to disable LEDs on all electronic devices.

As it is right now, I have little pieces of paper and cardboard folded over 9 devices to block all of their LEDs. Tomorrow I'm going out and getting some black electrical tape to cover some more.

 

[deadpixels]

Do Macs sleep much better than PCs?
QUOTE]

of course, it's because they have a clear conscience, winPC's have mightmares because they run an evil system

 

[displaced]

Allow me to quote one of my own Slashdot posts which should explain the difference between sleep on a Mac and on a PC:

Ah... you're describing my daily morning game of Russian Roulette.

I stubbornly refuse to shut down using any other manner than the one I find most convenient: Hibernate.

It'll work fine for a while. Long enough for comfort to begin to set in. But there's always that little increase in my pulse-rate when I drop my laptop into the docking station on my desk and hit the power button. The Resuming Windows bar moves across the screen. Fingers are crossed, and I turn to face Mecca whilst gripping a rabbit's paw for good luck. The screen goes black. Will my desktop appear? The wind's northerly, so the chances are good. Woohoo! It's worked! I've dodged the bullet this time...

However, every now and then... not often enough for me to abandon hibernation, but just often enough to keep things interesting... The machine will sit with the Resuming Windows bar full, or at the black screen after the bar... and go no further. I'll go get a coffee and sometimes it'll go through to the desktop. But then there's the times when it'll just be stuck there. Hold the power button, turn it back on, tell it not to delete restoration data and try again... No joy? Shut down again. Pull the USB connections and try again. Fails? Pull the ethernet cable and try again. No luck? Try plugging things into different USB ports...

Eventually, it'll work. But sometimes this feature is just plain borked. Completely unable to diagnose exactly what's causing it. Sometimes the saved session will have no apps open - just the bare desktop - and it'll still fail to resume. Totally random as far as I can see, which suggests it's something deep down in the crapitude of Windows' internals that's locking... something freaky going on with device initialisation I suppose.

Of course, being a Windows dev whose frequently eye-deep in XP's guts, I look at these problems as a father whose wayward son just won't get a clue would. It's just how it is. But... from an end-user point of view, if you're going to have a suspend and resume feature (be it sleep, hibernate, etc) it must work right 99.9999999% of the time. It simply must -- it's a critical time for the user's data, and the feature must behave as described. Either that, or the description of the feature should carry a caveat right there in the UI that activates it.

 

[e12a]

because those small memory leaks will slowly and inevitably cause windows to slow down...that's why you need to shut down.

boot it up again from a shutdown and you're right as rain.

 

[macbookhamburg]

everytime i put my windows pc to sleep i couldn`t use half of he programms after waking it up o it just crashed so i guess the sleep mode for mac just works better

 

[extraextra]

Personally I can't stand the pulsating LEDs. Occasionally, I will put my Macbook to sleep when I know that I will need to check something first thing in the morning. When I do that I put something in front of the LED to cover it up. It never blocks all of the light though, so most nights I just do a shutdown. I wish they would make an option to disable LEDs on all electronic devices.

As it is right now, I have little pieces of paper and cardboard folded over 9 devices to block all of their LEDs. Tomorrow I'm going out and getting some black electrical tape to cover some more.

Lol how bright is your LED? Or is it right in front of your face when you sleep? I never even notice mine!

 

[SMM]

In my experience, putting any computer to 'sleep' is just like putting a baby to sleep. You are never sure what mood the little darling is going to wake up in.

 

[letaalio]

The difference between sleeping and hibernating is that when a computer sleeps, it stores everything on the RAM, but when it is hibernated it stores everything on the HDD. Therefore waking up from hibernation takes a bit more time, because the computer has to read everything from the HDD.

It is considered safer and more energy-efficient to hibernate, because if you pull the power cord (battery in case of a laptop) whilst it is sleeping, stored data is lost almost instantly. It is more energy-efficient to hibernate simply because when a computer is hibernated everything inside it has been shut down, which is not the case in sleeping mode, when RAM is still powered. That is why your computer will drain the battery when you lug it around in sleep mode.

 

[displaced]

The difference between sleeping and hibernating is that when a computer sleeps, it stores everything on the RAM, but when it is hibernated it stores everything on the HDD

...<snip>...

True. However, unlike Windows, the difference between the two isn't something the Mac requires the user to care about in the slightest.

When the Mac sleeps, it also writes the content of RAM to the HD. However, it only falls back to resuming from that HD data (and the associated slow resume) if the power source runs out or AC power is lost. That's a much more logical approach. Windows gives you an either/or choice when you want to suspend your session - almost as if Windows thinks you should be able to see into the future to determine if power might be lost while the machine's asleep. OS X says "I'll go to sleep, and wake up as fast as I can."