# Is it a bad habit to keep hibernating PC instead of shutting it down ?



## 27MaD (May 3, 2019)

So this habit had beed stuck with me since i moved to Windows 10 like 9 months ago , it's because of faster boot time , nothing loads on the startup , to the desktop immediately , am i doing something wrong or what ? I litterly stopped shutting it down.


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## Wavetrex (May 3, 2019)

You're just consuming your SSD life a tiny bit faster (as memory is written to it every time you're hibernating).
But considering how fast they advance these days... it really doesn't matter. You'll most likely buy another one in 2-3 years, way before it got through useful lifespan.

So no worries, do whatever you like


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## rtwjunkie (May 3, 2019)

YMMV, but personally, not turning hibernation completely off has had wonky things happen from W8.1 thru 10. Now, every major update that turns it back on, I disable it.  My load times are great without it.  My life is not so hectic that the extra 2-3 seconds kills me. Basically like you said, fast without it.

Also it is additional blocks used in a big save on the SSD each time you turn off.


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## newtekie1 (May 3, 2019)

Hibernating is fine.  In fact, by default "Shutdown" in Windows 10 is now actually "Log Off then Hibernate".

Personally, I change that so Windows shuts down normally when I select shutdown and I shutdown instead of hibernat.  Because, really, with SSDs the difference between powering on from hibernating and completely off is minimal.


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## 27MaD (May 3, 2019)

And that's why i'm little confused , hibernating was so useful when i had my HDD , but now with the new SSD even if i shut it down it boots in a very satisfying time.


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## Melvis (May 3, 2019)

Yes I always have found it to be a bad idea to hibernate your PC instead of just shutting it down. Ive always found after a week of Hibernating the PC through the week that it tends to just screw up and then needs a reboot to fix its self, so I just turn the feature off all together and turn the PC off, Windows loves a reboot!


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## newtekie1 (May 3, 2019)

27MaD said:


> And that's why i'm little confused , hibernating was so useful when i had my HDD , but now with the new SSD even if i shut it down it boots in a very satisfying time.



Yep, and the longer shutdown time always annoys me when it is set to hibernate instead of shutdown.


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## 27MaD (May 3, 2019)

I guess i'll try to shut it down instead of hibernating because the boot time doesn't bother me anymore.


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## Shihab (May 3, 2019)

27MaD said:


> nothing loads on the startup



Well, technically speaking a lot do load on "startup," unless of course you're not having any software (besides the OS itself) running when you hibernate, which imo defeats the purpose of hibernation. :|

I personally use hybrid sleep. Shutdowns are only for maintenance stuff (updates, hardware changes, cleaning, etc) and the once-every-nth-month bug. If you keep a clean PC with no baddly coded junk/drivers running, I see not why you _need_ to clean start for every use. The only reason I'd skip hibernation in your case would be to save up on that 6~8GB reserved by the hiberfil.sys file.


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## kastriot (May 3, 2019)

Well i just put PC to sleep at night and that's  it hibernation is obsolete now and it's  not good for ssd  life.


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## Abaidor (May 3, 2019)

I always put it on sleep and this is how I've been doing it for years. I want to be able to resume my workflow fast since I leave Outlook, some File Explorer Windows, Qdir, Browsers (web dev) and sometimes other applications open..

The thing is that I am on the x299 platform and boot times on my motherboard Asus Rampage VI Extreme are not that great due to several extra hardware this board comes with and the UEFI goes through several tests at boot..


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## Bill_Bright (May 3, 2019)

First, "hibernate" sleep mode is for notebooks, not PCs.  "Hybrid" sleep mode is for PCs. I never "shutdown" my computers, except to do maintenance on the hardware (cleaning out dust bunnies, for example). 

If your motherboard uses DDR4, and you are running W10 (especially with a SSD), Hybrid sleep mode can result in much faster wake speeds because the RAM goes into a low-voltage state to maintain significant chunks of data in the RAM. That's a good thing because that data, along with the data in the hiberfil file results in those much quicker boot times. 

Is it a bad habit to just let your PC go to sleep? Absolutely not.


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## eidairaman1 (May 3, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> First, "hibernate" sleep mode is for notebooks, not PCs.  "Hybrid" sleep mode is for PCs. I never "shutdown" my computers, except to do maintenance on the hardware (cleaning out dust bunnies, for example).
> 
> If your motherboard uses DDR4, and you are running W10 (especially with a SSD), Hybrid sleep mode can result in much faster wake speeds because the RAM goes into a low-voltage state to maintain significant chunks of data in the RAM. That's a good thing because that data, along with the data in the hiberfil file results in those much quicker boot times.
> 
> Is it a bad habit to just let your PC go to sleep? Absolutely not.



My pc is quick enough to boot up from cold start. Hibernate is ok if you are in the middle of something and have to leave suddenly.


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## MrGenius (May 3, 2019)

newtekie1 said:


> ...by default "Shutdown" in Windows 10 is now actually "Log Off then Hibernate".
> 
> Personally, I change that so Windows shuts down normally when I select shutdown and I shutdown instead of hibernat.


Would you mind explaining in detail exactly what it is you're talking about? Because I haven't a clue as to any of it.


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## eidairaman1 (May 3, 2019)

MrGenius said:


> Would you mind explaining in detail exactly what it is you're talking about? Because I haven't a clue as to any of it.



Shut down on this asus laptop with 10 it wants to close everything, hibernate just writes the last state to the drive and powers off, once you come back the os knows to reload the last state. Course drive space is necessary.


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## Bill_Bright (May 3, 2019)

eidairaman1 said:


> My pc is quick enough to boot up from cold start.


Personal preference sure plays a part. But there's another reason to let our computer just go to sleep - housekeeping and updates. Despite any personal feelings and doubts about Windows Update, it really is very reliable. Problems truly have been very rare affecting only a very few. Sadly, any problem that does occur tends to gather viral attention with exaggerated and often repeated (over and over again) headlines making the problems appear to be much worse than they actually are.

Letting our computers simply go to sleep lets Windows Update update (and, if necessary, reboot to apply those updates that need rebooting) in the middle of the night while we sleep. The same applies to Windows housekeeping chores like Indexing and defragging (for hard drives).


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## newtekie1 (May 3, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> First, "hibernate" sleep mode is for notebooks, not PCs.  "Hybrid" sleep mode is for PCs. I never "shutdown" my computers, except to do maintenance on the hardware (cleaning out dust bunnies, for example).
> 
> If your motherboard uses DDR4, and you are running W10 (especially with a SSD), Hybrid sleep mode can result in much faster wake speeds because the RAM goes into a low-voltage state to maintain significant chunks of data in the RAM. That's a good thing because that data, along with the data in the hiberfil file results in those much quicker boot times.
> 
> Is it a bad habit to just let your PC go to sleep? Absolutely not.



Wow, this post is way out there...

1.) There is nothing that says hibernate is for notebooks and not Desktops.  Hibernate is just a lower power state than sleep mode.  It is typically used more than sleep for laptops, because it uses significantly less power than sleep.  In fact, hibernation is pretty much the same power usage as the computer being totally off.
2.) Sleep mode leave the RAM active and keeps the data stored in RAM for a quicker wake-up. In this mode, if power to the PC is removed, it will not wake up.
3.) Hibernate offloads the contents of RAM to the main storage and then powers down the RAM.  In this mode, power to the PC can be completely removed, and the computer will still wake up.
4.) Hybrid sleep puts the computer to sleep like normal sleep mode, but also saves the contents of RAM to the storage device.  This is done so that if the computer loses power when in sleep, it can fall back to the hibernation data and still wake up just like the computer was hibernated instead of put the sleep.


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## Bill_Bright (May 3, 2019)

newtekie1 said:


> 1.) There is nothing that says hibernate is for notebooks and not Desktops.


 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13770/windows-shut-down-sleep-hibernate-your-pc


> *Hibernate*
> This option was designed for laptops and might not be available for all PCs.





newtekie1 said:


> Wow, this post is way out there...


But totally accurate.


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## NdMk2o1o (May 3, 2019)

Most computers with a decent spec and SSd these days don't need sleep or hibernation imo, i've only got a sata SSD and I can still turn the computer on from cold in around 15 seconds I've even added a 4 second delay to the post screen as it whizzes past faster than my monitor wakes up so I normally have to reboot just to get into the bios. 

Short answer: not needed, no bother if you use it so just do whatever you want.


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## Bill_Bright (May 3, 2019)

Hibernation is still useful with notebooks as you can just close the clamshell lid and put it in hibernate mode. The main distinction, and the reason it was created for notebooks and not PCs is when that lid is closed and the hiberfil file is created, the notebook shuts off completely to save battery power.


NdMk2o1o said:


> Short answer: not needed,


Again Windows on a PC is able to do other housekeeping chores if not completely shutdown. So if you have the discipline to, for example, regularly check for updates or to just let your system go idle so it can do those chores, then you are right, putting it to sleep instead of total shut down is not needed. 

But most users today don't want to fuss with manual housekeeping chores. And they shouldn't have to if they don't want to. And for them, they can just stick with the default settings which, for a PC running W10, is hybrid sleep mode.


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## Shihab (May 3, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13770/windows-shut-down-sleep-hibernate-your-pc
> 
> But totally accurate.



Afaik, hibernation is an ACPI state, not something Microsoft exclusively controls to dictate whether the concept is desktop thing or a laptop thing. Sure, laptops see more practical uses for it, but that doesn't really prevent anyone with supported desktop hardware -which is practically all mainstream hardware- from using it, nor make such use bad/harmfull.


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## Valantar (May 3, 2019)

The occasional reboot will be necessary, but hibernating your PC 99% of the time is perfectly fine. There are a lot of myths surrounding how bad sleep or hibernation are, and none of them are true, even if sleep and hibernation are frequently buggy for a variety of reasons. Unless it causes some sort of error or instability, there's no reason to not keep using it.


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## notb (May 3, 2019)

OMG. Discussion about hibernation in 2019...
What next? "Do I really need to click shutdown instead of just pulling the plug?"

The idea behind hibernation is not to improve boot time (it could actually be slower; shutting down takes longer as well).
*It's about saving the PC's state.*

As for SSD life, most of us are unlikely to see the drive reaching it's write cycle limits anyway, with typical estimated life spans measured in tens or hundreds of years. One would have to use a lot of RAM, have a relatively small SSD and hibernate few times a day.


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## dirtyferret (May 3, 2019)

What about those times when I leave the PC on but I go into hibernation?  Is that healthy?


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## newtekie1 (May 3, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13770/windows-shut-down-sleep-hibernate-your-pc
> 
> But totally accurate.



Designed for notebooks  does not mean it is only for laptops and not desktops.  Remember, Microsoft themselves made Hibernate the standard option when you shutdown any PC, desktop or laptop.

Hibernate was designed as a method to save as much power as possible, this was for laptops to maximize battery life.  However, as I said, you incorrectly stated that it isn't for desktops. Your statement is completely wrong.  There is nothing saying it isn't for used with desktops, and even Microsoft seems to disagree with you at this point.

There is next to nothing that was accurate in your post.


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## phanbuey (May 3, 2019)

My only issue with hibernate is that windows 10 isn't the stablest of cats when it comes to RAM management, and the 'intelligent' standby list (ram precache) gets absolutely out of control on my system to the tune of 20GB after about 48hours.  To the point that some games will stutter when windows starts swapping in and out of it mid game.   A reboot and/or shellscript fixes it, but by default the system performs worse with hibernation than a clean boot each time.


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