Re: Windows 10 and 11 power state habits: shutdown, sleep or hibernate

Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote:
[...]
> I shut down my desktop and laptop at least once a day, when I go to
> bed at night, and I switch them off at the wall plug, mainly to keep
> my electricity bill down. Even when the machines themselves are not
> running, the transformers consume electricity if not switched off or
> unplugged. 

  If the system sleeps, it should use very little power, only for
maintaining the content of RAM.

  If the system is hibernated, it uses even less or no power. Paul can
probably tell for a desktop which part(s), if any, still use power. The
laptop does not use any power, which you can prove by taking out the
battery (if that can be (somewhat easily) removed. After re-inserting
the battery (after a couple of hours) and shorthy pressing the power
button, the laptop will resume where you left off.

> My desktop computer has a couple of hard disks, and I have a funny
> feeling that if I leave it running all the time, even when I'm not
> using it, the bearings will wear out faster. 

  Both with sleep and hibernate the disks should stop.

  For details, see the settings in the Power Options applet (Control
Panel -> Power Options -> Change plan settings -> Change advanced power
settings).

  Bottom line: Do as you please, but don't do things a certain way for
the wrong reasons, i.e. in this case (no) electicity use and (no) disk
wear.