How to Hibernate or Sleep Your Computer By Pushing The Power Button

The power button on your computer can be used to make your computer turn off, hibernate, or enter sleep mode. These power saving options can speed up start-up while still saving power. I use the button to hibernate on my laptop.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A Windows laptop with power saving options enabled.

1. 
   Click Here To Open Power Options

   First, open the power options. You can do this by right clicking on the batter icon on the task bar and choosing power options or, in the control panel, click on "Change Battery Settings" in Vista or "Power Options" in Windows XP.

2. 
   Select the Appropriately Named

   Next, click on "Choose What Closing the Lid Does" in Vista or navigate through the sub menus in XP until you see the lid option.

3. 
   This Screen Allows The Change to be Made

   Choose what you want to happen from the drop down menu. You can adjust the power button, sleep button, and lid settings from this screen. Click apply or okay to save and update the settings.

4. If you are unhappy with the result, changing the options back is easy. Just follow the steps above to try several options and find the one you like best.

Tips & Warnings

• You can update the settings so something different happens when plugged in or on battery power.
• For hibernate, you must enable hibernation from the advanced power options menu.
• Hibernate takes disk space to save settings when shutting down.
• Sleep mode still uses some power but boots up faster.

Resources

• Windows XP Power Management
• Vista Power Options

[Mitestarossa]

on 4/6/2009 Awesome, I really needed this advice.

[waters]

on 4/6/2009 I just started to use a laptop at home. Good information in this article.