Should you hibernate or shutdown Windows PC at night

Speed Up My PC

A question most energy conscious folks have! Should I hibernate or shut down my Windows PC at night? Which is better? In this article we explore both options and then you can decide for yourself.

hibernatepc Should you hibernate or shutdown Windows PC at night

Hibernate or Shutdown

If you’re a Windows user, Microsoft suggests that you just set up your PC to “hibernate” overnight. “Hibernate” powers down your monitor to about 5 watts of energy and your PC to 2.3 watts—virtually the same as turning your PC off (your monitor uses zero watts when turned off. Either way, you save as much as $90 a year in power costs compared to a PC left on with a 3-D screen saver running.

If you use the “hibernate” feature of Windows XP (and previous versions including Windows 2000 and Windows Me), or even the “sleep” feature of most new Dell and other PC models, it really doesn’t however matter much, if you shutdown or hibernate.

Even the folks at Energy Star agree you save almost as much energy as you do turning off your computer for the night (minus unplugging it). And you won’t have to endure a lengthy “re-booting” process the next morning; your computer should “wake up” in 30 seconds or less.

Those at Energy Star still prefer that you turn your computer off at night, for maximum energy savings. “We are all about energy savings, and when you shut off your computer at night, you save the most energy,” says Craig Hershberg, program manager for office equipment and consumer electronics. “Every little bit helps. It all adds up.”

However, here are some consumer “myths” that are worth addressing:

- Turning your PC off uses more energy than leaving it on. Not true. The small surge of power you use when turning it on—which varies per PC make and model—is still much smaller than the amount you use in keeping it on for lengthy periods.

- Turning your PC on and off wears it out. A decade ago, there was something to this, but not today, say Hershberg and others. It used to be that PC hard disks did not automatically park their heads when shut off, and that frequent on/off cycling could damage the hard disks. Today’s PCs are designed to handle 40,000 on/off cycles before a failure, and that’s a number you likely won’t reach during the computer’s five-to-seven-year life span.

- Screen savers save energy. Not true. Screen savers, at a minimum, can use 42 watts; those with 3-D graphics can use as much as 114.5 watts. It’s absolutely wrong thinking that a screen saver will save energy.

- Your computer uses zero energy when “off.” That’s true only if it is unplugged. Otherwise, the PC utilizes “flea power,” or about 2.3 watts, to maintain local-area network connectivity, among other things. In “hibernate” mode, your PC uses the same 2.3 watts; in “sleep” mode, your PC uses about 3.1 watts. Monitors do use zero energy when turned off.

What do you do normally? I usually Hibernate everyday, but make it a point to shutdown on weekends or when I am sure that I’m not going to be using my PC the next day.

Posted by on , in Category Windows with Tags , ,
Anand aka HappyAndyK is an end-user Windows enthusiast, a Microsoft MVP in Windows Desktop Experience since 2007, and the Admin of TheWindowsClub.com, TheGeeksClub.com & WinVistaClub.com. Creating a System Restore Point before trying out a new software or a tweak is always recommended.

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  • Roy Smith

    I saw a very similar post to this yesterday and I advise that considering the fact that LogiTech have developed a way in which they can access and remote control a computer using only the “flea power” of a pc that is actually switched off but still plugged in at the wall socket then everyone for security reasons should turn their pc’s off and unplug them from the socket too!

    My reasoning for this is that we all know how malisciously clever hackers can be and I wouldn’t be surprised now that the news is filtering out to the wider community that LogiTech can do this that pretty soon we’ll have the first instances of data being removed from PCs switched off but still plugged in at the socket.

    What the good guys can do the bad guys either copy or find a way to improve on with disastrous results for someone somewhere

  • Sam Steinhauser

    You may not have any worries about the hard drive but the heating and cooling of the components, various sockets and energy surge upon power on causes stress.

    I have my ’05 Intel 965EE CPU laying here fried after it run flawlessly for 3.5 years O/CDed to 3.8 from 3.2ghz and when I moved it to my wife’s machine and let it hibernate, it died in 3 months.

    No one likes a surprise of the computer not starting up. Leave them on!

  • Transcontinental

    For those who have set the Registry value “DisablePagingExecutive” to 1 (in order to increase system performance), do remember that the Hibernate function requires “DisablePagingExecutive” to be set to 0 (whilst the Sleep function does not).

  • http://tech-mania.com sid

    I shut down everyday when i sleep at nite..

  • Molly

    Unfortunately, I always leave me laptop on, and this is for two reasons. One, I always run Progress Through Processors, and it can’t get data crunched when my laptop is hibernating. And two, I have to connect to my school’s internet through this thing called Cisco Clean Access, which checks for antivirus software, every time I disconnect and reconnect to the internet, which is a huge pain, especially when I need to check something online super-fast before I leave for class. Sorry, energy guys. :)

  • rufe

    I leave my laptop on 24/7 and only turn off the monitor at night.

  • Saka

    I shut down after using the pc.

  • http://bitbased.net Brant Wedel

    I recommend Hibernating or Sleeping over turning the computer off. When you turn your computer on and off it accesses and writes to many system file areas. When you hibernate you are less likely to be writing to system critical areas on the hard disk, but you do of course write a large hibernate file with your current ram session. Sleep mode on a UPS is the best mode if you are worried about optimal system stability =P.

  • Nafis Ahmed

    My Windows Vista Home Premium does not have that hibernation feature. What should I do? I’ll turn it off.

  • http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ Windows Club
  • http://www.tech-tweak.net/ Tech-Tweak

    Is it true that, putting laptop on sleep mode always, reduces its overall battery life. As this happened with one of my HP laptop. I rarely used to shut it down.
    Also, i don not prefer to use hibernate as it usually take time to start and uses 4Gb hard-disk space, as compared to sleep mode.

    Finally is it really true that, “Today’s PCs are designed to handle 40,000 on/off cycles before a failure, and that’s a number you likely won’t reach during the computer’s five-to-seven-year life span.”?

  • RSVR85

    I hibernate my PC at night.
    Here’s why!

  • adle hidde

    hey can you please help me to know whether during hibernation can a computer be unplugged or not.

  • http://www.thewindowsclub.com/about Windows Club

    ^ Yes you can.

  • mamazaac

    Can anyone tell me whether the hibernate file that is written to your hard drive each time you hibernate overwrites the previous hibernate file or creates a new one? Presumably if it creates a new one you have to manually delete the old ones or it won’t be long until your hard drive is clogged up with unnecessary files?

  • http://twitter.com/LordReserei LordReserei

    I have hibernate disabled, mostly because of the size of SSD I have (64GB). I used to put my PC into hibernation or sleep when I used a mechanical drive for Windows since the startup/boot time took a minute or two, but everyone knows SSDs are crazy fast – so I don’t see the point in doing it any more, I just shut it down.