Are there specific technical considerations that would make it detrimental to put your computer in sleep mode every time?
Often I have a lot of stuff open and don't feel like shutting down my laptop, so I just use sleep mode when I'm transferring it. But I have no idea if this might have any disadvantages.
So my question: are there technical considerations that would make it detrimental to put your computer in sleep mode every time?
Associated implications:
- Would any such issues be mitigated by turning off my computer every once in a while?
- Is continuous use of sleep mode known to slow down a system in any way, and for what technical reason if so?
- Is continuous use of sleep mode known to cause any long-term side effects, and for what technical reason if so??
FYI I'm using Windows 7 on a laptop.
Solution 1:
One other negative point is that the laptop will still be consuming a small amount of battery while in sleep mode.
Hibernation is another other option to consider which would completely power it down - yet still allow you to resume exactly where you were when you hibernated it.
Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings -> Change Advanced Power settings -> Sleep -> Allow hybrid sleep (<-- you could also go into the command prompt and type powercfg -h on)
Once those settings have applied, you can go into Power Buttons and Lid in that same dialog box and set it to Hibernate.
Some system processes and applications end up hogging resources and the only way to release it is to restart.
Solution 2:
Sleep is often not well supported amongst drivers, as a result, your computer might be less stable.
For example, my video hang problem seems more likely to occur after a sleep cycle...
Solution 3:
In Windows I always prefer to reboot my computer once in a while. Usually after updates...
Remember servers does rarely reboot/shutdown, and they don't have any ill effects of this. Of course some badly designed software or device driver may have a memoryleak that is 'reset' during a reboot, but I guess thats pretty rare for a running system.
Any long term effects that isn't fixed by a reboot is rather unlikely...
Solution 4:
The reason why I do reboot from time to time is that some softwares need to the reboot to complete their updates (aside from the obvious Windows Updates which insist heavily for you to reboot).
Aside from that, I did not see any negative side-effect to maintain a long Windows (Vista in my case) uptime through sleep mode cycles.
Solution 5:
Sleep mode is basically for when you need to move the laptop briefly. However, if you keep your laptop in sleep overnight or for long periods of time, say, more than three hours a day, the long term effect is that most batteries get damaged or experience reduced lifetime. This is due to continuous use while in sleep mode, though the power consumed is negligibly small.
I have over time realised that graphics drivers misbehaving on resuming may sometimes even cause a black screen when you plug and unplug the charger rather than brighten and dim the screen, respectively. Other undesirable effects include the lifespan of your RAM being reduced due to constantly holding charges even when the machine is not in use. I would suggest that you use hibernation instead for long periods.