Various Power states are included on Windows computers to enable you to conserve power by reducing consumption of power by various devices on your computer. Before Windows Vista, Windows operating systems came with two separate Standby and Hibernate modes.
In Standby mode, your Windows computer switches to a lower-power state. In this state, all hardware devices including the monitor and the hard disk of your computer are turned-off and the power consumption by the system is reduced. The computer easily comes out of the standby mode when you want to use it again. Standby mode is especially useful for the mobile laptop computers by helping you conserve battery power when you are not using it. One drawback of standby mode is that, if there is a power failure, you lose all unsaved data.
Hibernate mode saves you from this. In this mode, all current data in the memory is saved to the hard disk and then your entire computer is turned off. When you choose to turn your computer back on, your system is restored to exactly the same condition at which you hibernated it. Although, when you hibernate, you do not lose data even if the computer is turned off, but it takes a longer time to get into and come out of hibernation.
To take care of drawbacks of both Standby and Hibernate modes, a new Power state has been incorporated in Windows Vista. This mode is called Sleep mode. This Sleep power state is the default “Off” state in Windows Vista. To put your PC is Sleep state, you need to press the power button of your PC and select the button that exits on the Start menu. When you do this, your computer will enter the Sleep power state by quickly copying the current state of your computer both to the system memory and the computer disk. Because status information is written in the memory, you can almost instantaneously turn your PC back on to its current state when required. Moreover, since the information is written to the hard disk also, you don’t have any risk of losing unsaved information in case the power fails.
Thus, Windows Vista Sleep mode fixes the problems of both Standby and Hibernate modes in Windows XP and combines the benefits of both to simply speed up the computer startup and shutdown process for users. It is recommended that to enjoy the optimal performance of sleep mode, you opt for a PC with the Windows Vista operating system pre-installed.
In case you want to customize the power settings of your Vista computer, perform the following steps:
- Open Control Panel and then select the link for power settings.
- Select the Change power settings link for your selected power plan.
- Select Change advanced power settings.
Here, you can customize the power settings of your Windows Vista computer according to your needs.