Most likely, the majority of Windows-system users know that turning off the computer to pause it, so to speak, is not always advisable, since you can use special sleep mode or hibernation. The essence of the use of such "falling asleep" for the most part is to reduce power consumption without completely de-energizing the PC or laptop (in earlier systems, screensaver was used for this). Everything would be fine, but far from everyone knows how to enable sleep mode in Windows 10 or which one to choose from. Let us try to briefly consider some important aspects related to these issues.
Sleep against hibernation: what to choose?
The first step is to determine what state the computer will be in when falling asleep. In a normal dream, the execution of all processes active in the system is suspended, however, in the event of a complete power failure, the data is not saved, and all previously launched applications are turned off (they will need to be restarted).
In hibernation mode, even after a complete blackout, the user is not in danger, since data on all active processes are stored in a special file on the hard disk (hyberfil.sys), which, however, can take up a lot of space. But after powering up or restarting the computer, absolutely all programs will be able to continue their work, as if nothing had happened. Many call the lack of hibernation too slow waking up (getting out of normal sleep mode is much faster). To do this, you can activate a special hybrid mode, in which the data will be stored, and waking up will be faster. Alas, basically this mode can be used exclusively on stationary computer terminals.
Checking Available Modes
Before activating one of the modes, you need to check which of them are generally available in the system. To do this, you must call the command console on behalf of the administrator and execute the combination powercfg –a in it .
Standby mode (S3) is a normal dream, with hibernation, and so everything is clear, and quick start is used to accelerate waking up, it is recommended to install by default, but most often causes errors. We will deal with the hybrid mode a little later, but for now let's focus on the main parameters.
How to enable hibernation in Windows 10: simple methods
The easiest method to put the computer to sleep, if you have not changed the initial settings in the system, is to use the main Start menu, in which the desired item is selected from the shutdown section.
Apparently, everyone knows about this.
If you understand how to enable sleep mode on a laptop in Windows 10, you first need to call the power settings section and go to the action item when closing the lid.
In the parameters, simply select the desired action, and then save the changes.
If hibernation is not available due to the fact that such a transition is disabled, use the command line, in which you will need to run the command powercfg –h on. After that, by default, the computer will go to sleep only using hibernation. Accordingly, to deactivate the mode and delete the system file responsible for it in order to free up disk space, the attribute “off” is introduced instead of the “on” operator . Restarting the system in both cases is recommended, although it is not mandatory.
In principle, you can also enable Windows 10 hibernation with hot keys. So, for example, you can use the main menu call by pressing the Win button, and then select the action you need with the arrows and the enter key.
A simpler solution would be to use the Alt + F4 combination (when only the “Desktop” is visible on the screen, and not some active application that will be closed by such a combination), after which you can select the desired action from the drop-down list.
Some important settings
Basically, when talking about how to configure hibernation, you can use two main methods in Windows 10. The first is to call the settings from the system section presented in the options menu, and the second involves switching to the required options through the usual “Control Panel”. On laptops, the procedure is simplified by the fact that you can go to the settings through the PCM menu on the battery icon in the system tray. There are a lot of parameters here and there is no special sense to describe them all.
But the most important thing that you should pay special attention to is to set the options for automatically switching to sleep mode without the need for its physical activation. At the same time, you can specify the transition time, the need to turn off the display or hard drives, etc. By and large, even a beginner can figure it out.
How to enable hybrid sleep mode in Windows 10?
As for the hybrid mode, in the options of the current power scheme it is necessary to go to the item of additional parameters, and then check whether its activation is supported.
If you can enable it, set the required options and save the changes.
Possible mistakes
So, how to enable sleep mode in Windows 10, in general terms, it’s already clear. To complete the picture, a few words should be said about possible errors and malfunctions. For example, it will not work to make the computer fall asleep when downloading torrents, since the ban is set by default in the client program itself. Sometimes the list of modes in the start menu may not be displayed, and to activate them in the settings of the power scheme, you must select the corresponding item. If it is not possible to exit by moving the mouse or by pressing buttons and keys, you should set the resolution to wake the PC from sleep mode for the selected equipment in the “Device Manager”. Quite often there is a problem with video cards, for which it is extremely necessary to update drivers.