I'm done using my laptop for the day. But I plan on using it tommorrow. Should I shut down my laptop for the night? Or should have hiberate my laptop?

I do not have the laptop plugged into the wall power supply. Does a laptop uses up battery when hibernating?

The advantage of hibernating is that I don't have to wait for it to boot up in the morning. But what is the downside?

Does a laptop uses up battery when hibernating?

Yes. If it's on, it uses battery power.

Should I shut down my laptop for the night? Or should have hiberate my laptop?

I personally hibernate mine for days at a time and it's fine.

But what is the downside?

You'll have to charge the battery slightly more often. It's a minimal power drain, from what I've found.

Just shut it down. As long as it is not a very old laptop it doesn't take long to start up. Save a little power and battery life.

From what I've found in the past, a hibernate is a shutdown. It copies the contents of the RAM to a file on the hard disk (hiberfil.sys on C:\ (hidden)), then physically switches off. You can unplug it from the wall then, and remove the battery. Plug everything back in, and boot it up. Log back in, and it acts as if it were never shut down in the first place.
Increases boot time dramatically. Love it. Hibernate isn't like standby or the like. It doens't use any power at all. Because once it's copied the memory to the hd, it actually uses ACPI to shut itself off.

When you put your computer into hibernate, its copies the contents of your RAM on to the HD. It doesn't use any power because everything is copied HD. However if you put your laptop into standby, it will use your battery.

I often put my computer into hibernate, purely because it improves loading times. However once in a while I would shutdown your computer just to clear out the RAM.

Originally Posted by hamesy

I often put my computer into hibernate, purely because it improves loading times. However once in a while I would shutdown your computer just to clear out the RAM.

That's what I do. Shutting down are starting up is very time consuming and from practice, just a waste of time. Hibernating is a great tool

Just some fair warning: Using hibernation mode does wear out your hdd. If you are putting your laptop into hibernation mode purely because you do not want to wait on a boot up, making proper adjustments may be something you want to look into.

Thanks for the info. Yes, I would image that writing 2GB of RAM to disk and re-reading that every time I hibernate would wear on the disk a bit.

I think hibernation is fine. I found out recently that my laptop was in sleep mode for about 5 weeks. I went to move it and the Sob's screen came right on like I never left.

I use the "new laptop" method now. Every time I'm finished with a days work, I toss the old laptop out the window or on the ground and grab a new one from the laptop drawer.

In general hybernating is good but I would shutdown at least 3 or more times a week

If you are glad I helped you can give me some Talkupation please.

I would shutdown the laptop in the evening