Computer Question

Your question is well covered at the Microsoft webpage Standby and battery life

As long as its plugged in, it can stay on forever in standby, though you might want to set it to hibernate after a long while of non-use. On battery, make sure you have it set for battery performance, lower your screen brightness, set the screen to go off after a few minutes of non use, and disable any Wireless or USB or Firewire peripherils you're not actually using, and you'll get the maximum battery performance. All my machines, laptops and towers alike, run 24/7/365, unless I'm working on them. One of 'em is coming up on its 6th birthday. An occasional reboot is a good idea for always-on machines, but I think there's no real reason to shut one down completely as long as it has external power and you aren't poking around inside its case or instaslling a new peripheral that ought to be first connected on bootup. Let it shut down its screen on its own after a while, and "go to sleep" (Standby). About all I ever use "Hibernate" for is changing a laptop's battery in the field without shutting it down and loosing track of what it was doing. My laptops are all set to Hibernate if battery power falls to 8% ... just in case I don't notice ... which happens sometimes. Actually, it happens often enough that I decided on the 8% thing

Well, again I notice the disadvantage of living in Old Europe: here, everyone advices to shut down the computer etc ... for energy saving reseans. (Besides misspending resources, electricity costs real money here :wink: )

I know what you're sayin', Walter, but in standby, with the screen off and the fans powered down, a 'puter draws less current than does a TV when its off (TVs don't really power all the way off when you hit the "Off" button ... they really just go into a standby state, with critical components still powered ... so do lots of stereo/home theater components). Not much more draw, really, than a nightlight. And believe me, out here in the boondocks, electricity ain't cheap by a longshot ... its about twice or better here than what someone in a city pays, on average.

rhymer, timber, thanks for your help-

i don't see any hibernate options on my computer

No Hibernate? That's odd. I'd check with Dell about that. I suspect your machine has the capability, but either its been deactivated by windows (which Windows will do if recovery from hibernate fails a few times), or you've never activated it. Here's a good place to start looking for info. If nothing else, if the machine is outside its support period, register on Dell's website and join their forums, then ask for the info there on the board related to your particular operating system/machine family.

Often hibernation support is not turned on by default. Here's how you would enable it in Windows 2000 (if you're using a different version of Windows and the steps aren't the same, let me know & I'll post instructions specific to your OS).

Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Power Options -> Hibernate -> Enable hibernate support

timberland, thanks very useful

monger, i did as you instructed and there doesn't seem to be a hibernate option...