Losing Sleep over Hibernation?

While checking on the two Lenovo S10 Forums, I found that there are some confusion between the Sleep (or Standby) mode and the Hibernation mode implementation on the S10. This is compounded by the fact that Lenovo has replaced the Windows power management by its own Energy Management.

To see what I mean, get on to the Windows power management page by right clicking on any empty space on the desktop. The Display Properties window will appear as below.

Select the Screen Saver tab and the windows below will appear.

Click on the Power button and the Power Options Properties screen will appear. How MS decide to hide the power management page under the Display Properties is beyond me.

You'll find that all the options are greyed, meaning you cannot make any changes here. To make changes, you have to go to the Lenovo Energy Management window. You can also get to this Windows power options page by going to Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance and then Power Options.

Will your system go to sleep or will it go into hibernation? It all depends on the settings on the Windows Power options or the Lenovo Energy Management. You can prevent your system from going into hibernation by selecting the Advanced tab and unchecking the "Enable hibernation" box. Don't forget to click the Apply button after any changes.

Once you have disabled hibernation and if you check the Power Options page again, you will find that the "System hibernates" line is no longer there, meaning your system will never go into Hibernation but only into Sleep or Standby mode.

What is the difference between the Sleep mode and the Hibernation mode? In simple terms, hibernation is deep sleep. You system will wake up from sleep when you touch the pad, press a key or open the lid (if it's close) but to wake it from hibernation, you MUST press the power on key.

Technically, the system will go into stages of undress, oops, I mean rest - monitor off, hard drive off, etc, based on the settings (timing in the power options above) and when it reaches the stage where only the RAM is still on, it is in sleep mode. Before it goes into hibernation, it will save the contents of the RAM into the Hard drive and the RAM itself will power off. Thus the system draws no power when in hibernation and thus is the mode best for power conservation. And your hard drive must have spare space of at least equal to the size of the RAM so that it can save the contents of the RAM before the system go into hibernation.

By the way, you can move into Hibernation mode quickly by going to the Turn Off Computer page, move the pointer over the Standby button and a dialog box will appear that says "To hibernate instead, hold down the Shift key." That is, if you have enabled hibernation. Thus you can start up you S10 much quicker by going into Hibernation instead of shutting down normally.

My next post will be on the Lenovo Energy Management itself. I need to go into Sleep mode now.

Ronald Kwok
http://ronaldkwok.atomicblog.hop.clickbank.net/