If you often don’t use your computer for short periods of time, instead of completely shutting down your PC, you could opt for using sleep or hibernation mode.
Both modes save energy when you’re not using your PC and allow the fast restart of windows when you decide to restart your computer again.
By opening the Start menu and then clicking on the icon “Stop” you will notice that there are only three entries: “Suspend”, “Shut down,” And “Reboot the system.” The hibernation mode, in fact, on the latest versions of the Microsoft operating system, is disabled by default. Fortunately, a simple procedure allows you to enable it with just a few clicks.
In the following paragraphs, I will concisely and simply explain the difference between sleep mode and hibernate mode, then I will show you the steps to take to enable hibernate mode in Windows 11.
Difference between sleep mode and hibernate mode
Sleep mode and hibernate mode work in a very similar way, both modes, in fact, allow you to save energy when you are not using your PC and allow you to start your computer quickly when you need to.
The difference between the two modes is the temporary saving of open documents and running programs.
What is sleep mode?
When you activate suspend mode, the system will save all open documents and running programs in RAM, then cut power to all components except RAM. In this state, the PC will consume very little energy And can be “awakened” quickly taking advantage of the speed of the RAM.
What is hibernation mode?
In hibernation mode, open documents and running programs are saved on the hard disk or SSD. This allows you to cut off the power completely. However, restarting will be slower because the speed of the hard disk or SSD is slower than that of the RAM.
Hibernate mode is very useful in laptops, especially when they are not connected to the power supply, in fact, in the event that the battery should run down entirely, open documents will not be lost because they are saved on disk. All this does not happen with sleep mode.
How to enable hibernation in Windows 11
For enable hibernate mode in Windows 11the procedure to be followed is as follows:
- Open the Control Panel, to do this, press from the keyboard WIN+Rtype “control panel” then click the button “OK” or press ENTER from keyboard. Alternatively, type “Control Panel” in the Windows search form and then click on the first result or press ENTER;
- After opening the Control Panel, make sure that next to the entry “View by:” (top right) the voice is present “Categories”;
- Click on the entry “System and Security”;
- Click on the entry “Power Options”;
- From the left side menu, click on the item “Specify power button behavior”;
- On the next screen, click on the entry “Change settings that are currently unavailable”;
- Put a checkmark next to the entry “Hibernation”;
- Click the button “Save Changes”;
If you use a notebook, go back to the previous page, and from the menu on the left, click on the item “Specify what happens when the lid is closed” then follow the steps described above.
At this point, by opening the Start menu and clicking on the icon “Stop” the “Hibernation” item will also be shown.
If for any reason, using the steps described above, you are unable to enable the voice “Hibernation”perform the following procedure:
- Type in the Windows search form “cmd”then click the entry “Run as administrator”;
- Click on “Yes”;
- In the Prompt window, type the following command:
powercfg /hibernate on- Awards ENTER;
- Close the Prompt and carry out the procedure described above.
