Is there a significant difference in energy usage between shutting down a computer overnight and putting it on sleep/standby?

i have always wondered the same. GQ Trustinglife!

I don’t know if the savings are significant or not, but I used to leave mine on all the time, and now I put it on “hibernate”. It seems to be a little more cost effective because the electric bill is slightly lower.

From Tech Trax:

“When a computer is Hibernating, it’s the same as off, from a power consumption point of view. Your computer’s memory is actually flushed out to disk just before powering off and stays there until you turn the computer back on. When the computer comes back on, it’s exactly the way you left it. A computer can stay in hibernation mode for a much longer period of time than standby mode when unplugged, and it uses less electricity. It takes slightly longer to resume from Hibernation than from Standby. However, it’s more secure because everything‘s written out to disk, and you’re not dependent on a good power source while in Hibernation, as you are with standby.”

The Start-Turn off computer option on my PC only gives me options to Standby, Shut down, or Restart. Is Hibernate available on other operating systems?

Hold the shift key while your cursor hovers over the “standby” or “shut down” buttons. It should then offer the choice of “hibernate.”

@Trustinglife Maybe hibernate is the same as standy. My computer is about 7 years old, so it’s a dinosaur!

I just checked to make sure what I said was correct. To put your computer into Hibernate mode, hold the shift key and press the “standby” button.

Wow, that’s awesome. I’m going to try it tonight. Thanks Marina and Eambos!

Hibernate writes all RAM to disk and is in essence, practically off.

Standby mode, on the other hand, leaves the RAM active with a trickle of juice to keep it from being lost. My laptop in standby is good for a couple of days before running the battery down.

Thanks Rob!