Image by Asended via Flickr

Many people have asked me what they should do with their computer; should they shut it down completely or just put it to sleep? My recommendation? Sleep!

Why? There are a few reasons, but the main reason is saving time. It is much faster to wake up a computer from sleep mode than it is to do a “cold boot", or power it up from being turned off. It takes seconds to wake your PC up compared to minutes with a full startup.

But doesn’t the PC use power while it is sleeping? Yes it does use a very minimal amount of power, but it isn’t worth the power it takes to turn on your computer. Roughly 5-6 watts of power is used in sleep mode, compared to 1 watt when turned off(Bet you didn’t know your PC uses power when it’s turned off!). So you are only saving 4-5 watts of power when your computer is turned off. I don’t think that will break your wallet when you pay your light bill!

Now don’t confuse sleep with hibernate. Do NOT hibernate your computer! It wastes hard drive space and really is pointless in my opinion. Be sure to click Sleep.

Bottom line, use sleep instead of shutting down your PC. You save time..lots of time. The power difference with your computer being completely off to being in sleep mode is hardly noticeable, only a few watts of difference.