What's best for my computer: Hibernate, sleep, or shut down?

I was told the best way to conserve battery life was to remove it if you intend to primarily use your laptop plugged in. It's the constant charge/discharge that cuts into battery life and while discharging it completely everyday is fine, it does't translate into practicality if you use an integrated powered docking station and all your USB peripherals are powered by it. Without power to the docking station, you lose access to the peripherals, with power, you're charging the battery. So with replacement batteries costing so much. I only operate under battery power when plugging it in isn't an option.

Keep the battery cycling? This guy must be from a battery company. The lithium batteries have a finite number of charging cycles. usually around 1,000. after that the battery capacity would drop. So more you charge-discharge, sooner you'd have to replace your battery!

LITHIUM ION BATTERIES *DO NOT REQUIRE FULL DISCHARGE* TALK ABOUT MYTHS. THE MORE YOU DEEPLY YOU DISCHARGE AN LI BATTERY THE MORE QUICKLY IT WILL AGE AND DIE.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

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If you want to extend, or at least maintain the longest possible battery life, charge the laptop to its fullest and then drain the battery completely. The battery 'remembers' how long it is supposed to last.

However, if you repeatedly plug the computer in and out without letting the battery completely drain, the battery's 'memory' is shortened and you will find the computer does not maintain the maximum charge time.

I had kept my laptop plugged 24 hours a day for the last 2 years. I use my laptop every day, and it was on while I watched YouTube shamelessly or listened to my i-tunes library for hours. I never bothered to turn it off when I went to bed. For the last two years. Well, my battery started giving out this year, until it just won't run for me. I just restarted using my laptop with a new battery this week. I learned my lesson the hard way, could've avoided $135. So, if I am to discharge the battery before I recharge it, I just hope this advice is based on acrual research and experimentation.

I just got my laptop lessnthan 1 yr and already I'm having spurts where the battery is not charging at all. A couple months ago for almost an entire month my lap's battery had less than 50% life. Then out of the blue the battery started recharging. Now the battery is acting up again like it did the last time. It's not charging like it should. I can't seem to figure out the battery and why it does this. Any suggestions? I don't know what the norm is on when the battery needs to be replaced? I don't think it's time to replace it. The battery should have last longer than a yr.

another consideration is that a lot of "optional" hardware like higher end graphics hardware, LAN-Internet and external USB devices do not properly turn back on after sleep or hibernation. You have to test your hardware and device drivers to know. But if sleep or hibernate messes up stuff you need to use -- then that option is out. Sleep tends to be a lot worse about this than hibernate as hibernate seems to do partial reinitialization of common devices.

A whole bunch of this information in articles and comments is outdated or situational. Batteries tendencies to develop memory of how much you discharged it and then set that as the new fully discharged state is primarily a feature of old battery technology (ni-cad and lead acid). New Lithium cell batteries have only a small fraction of that tendency. Sleep or hibernate or shutdown energy? Equal energy is false. The consultant meant equal WEAR. Sleep is great for relatively short periods of a few hours at time. But honestly if you might not be on the rest the day -- it clearly saves money and energy to hibernate or shutdown. Even small watts of sleep state mount up over time. Energy = watts multipied by hours (divide by 1000 to get kilowatts charged by power company).

A laptop is like a cellphone. But do you turn off your cellphone when you do not use it?

We should to know about hibernet.mesurety of people didn't know about hibernet.thanks for articles.

Well, I have a desktop also. I find that just using sleep works well, and it is seconds from "on" at any time. However, always run cleanup after surfing, and a twice a week shutdown helps to get all the ducks in a row. Keeps mine fast and easy. When I was in high school, my shop teacher had a radio that had been on for over twenty years, he just turned it down. "It's the start-up of any device where something is probably going to fail" is what he said about it.

laptops are overall better because there portable. I do agree the battery needs a workout.

My understanding there are two battery technologies: nickel-cadmium (old) and lithium-ion (new):
(http://www.ehow.com/about_7227703_nicad-vs_-li-ion-battery.html).

Ni-cad does have a memory effect, meaning it may be better to fully discharge:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-cadmium_battery#Memory_and_lazy_battery_effects).

Li-ion does not have a memory effect, meaining it is better *not* to fully discharge when used: from
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

"The smaller the depth of discharge, the longer the battery will last. If at all possible, avoid frequent full discharges and charge more often between uses. If full discharges cannot be avoided, try utilizing a larger battery. Partial discharge on Li-ion is fine; there is no memory and the battery does not need periodic full discharge cycles other than to calibrate the fuel gauge on a smart battery."

(Obviously the Internet is not a definitive souce of information, so check for yourself.)

I recommend you always shut down the laptop and not use the sleep mode. As your battery ages, it doesn't last as long. And if you let the battery completely die too many times, it will no longer hold a charge. Before long, it won't even work on the battery. It only takes a few weekends when you put it to sleep on a Friday with a low battery and the battery completely dies before Monday before you have a completely dead battery that won't hold a charge.

my kids and myself are really into airsofting... and those guns can use the same type of batteries... well, with the nmh type, you want to let it get close to complete drain... and then charge it. sometimes the nmh and nicd bateries can have 'memory' issues... which means that if you kill the battery, and dont charge it all the way up, it may just stay at that last level... and never charge up completely... they might not use nicad batteries anymore since the cells need to be bigger for longer power... and nmh bateries can have the same amount, but alot smaller... now the lithium polymer type... well...... if you let those die... it just might be over! they need to have no less then 3.5v per cell. or they might not work again! but the power you get from these 'lipo' types, and the size... well, there is no match! very bad for the enviroment tho... thats my 2 cents on battery life...

Did you ever have someone wake you up to tell you it's OK to sleep some more ?

ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz........ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz......

Computers???????? The more we try to make our lives simple, the more we complicate them. After all we do with these machines the best thing to do at the end is to write it all down on paper!!!!

don't ask IT guys questions it better to ask the person who runs the computers at school or ask people who where in computer tech classes