Can't recall if I've posted this before, but if I have I still haven't found the answer and it's still annoying.

I like Hibernate. I've often got loads of different programs, files and webpages open (doing coursework, honest!), and it takes ages to open everything up and find the right pages again. 

After getting this laptop with Windows 8, I had to specifically enable Hibernate as it's no longer a standard option.  But it mostly doesn't work.

If I choose Hibernate from the shutdown menu, 99 times out of a hundred when I turn it back on it doesn't restore my session. Very, very occasionally it does work. There's nothing in the event logs to say there's been an error with either hibernating or restoring the session, the logs just look like a normal shutdown/boot up process.

Various places around the web are blaming graphics drivers. I updated my nVidia drivers last night and tested hibernate - and it worked the first time, but the next time it went back to being a dick.

Any ideas? I know an SSD wouldn't solve the issue, but is this an excuse for an SSD? I'd quite like an SSD.

Have you tried using Standby/Suspend?

I always use that, and when it feels like it it will hibernate in the middle of the night - probably if the battery is getting down but I don't think I've found any correlation between when it stays suspended to when it wakes and hibernates.

Anyway, try suspend.

edit: actually, it's called Sleep on Windows.

I haven't - as a dad I now get REAL MAD about wasting electricty, leaving lights on etc. Suspend/Sleep/Whatever it's called this week just seems WASTEFUL to me. And I always think it'll just switch itself off when I'm not looking anyway.

I bought one of them plug-in power socket things that tell you how much power something is using.

I've now programmed my TV Server to turn off whenever no one is wanting to watch TV.

Current usage is too high but not too outrageous - about 10 kWh/day

What's that, about a grand a year? Ouch. We (2 adults, 2 kids) spent just under 500 on leccy last year.

Sure it's more like £600/year - £50/month.

The tumble dryer uses loads.

For some reason I thought prices were around 27.9 p/kwh. Turns out it's more like 16p. My bad.

Just leave it on. I have never shut down a computer or a laptop unless I really have to. I have an electric range, electric dryer and electric lights[g]. I have never spent more than about £53.00 in a month. The oven, stove and dryer are the biggest offenders of use, with lighting next. The computer probably is about 8 dollars a year if I had to guess.

Do you shut off the router and all that stuff too?

You probably spend more on trash bags. Trash bags? Yes, people buy them with the express purpose of throwing them out. I am NOT going to do that, it is the best example of waste I know of. I use paper grocery bags with the plastic bag on the outside in a nice wooden receptacle with a flippy lid.

I don't think leaving it on and then lugging it around in my bag is a good idea.

I leave the router on, because my Raspberry Pi downloads Linux images over night. And I might want to browse Teh on my phone in bed (NJ).

"my Raspberry Pi downloads Linux images over night"

Do you have this one?

No, I'll add it to the download queue.

 (frown)

(NJ) Night jerkoff?

Nonchalant jellyfish

Narcissistic junipers.

Noway José.

So I put it to sleep earlier, it then ran Lowton battery in my bag, turned itself on for a bit and then shutdown. I caught it as it was shutting down. Hopefully I didn't Fuck the hard drive (NJ) .

I never (ok, I did once) put my desktop into hibernate mode (and it took AGES to resume unlike my laptop) but I do usually hibernate my laptop to save battery (strange as I have an SSD, would have thought it would be quick). Not sure how much is consumes in standby but I assume more than hibernate.

Hibernate should turn your computer off. You should be able to turn it off at the wall and recover fine. In theory all it does it copy the contents of your RAM to your disk.

Suspend usually turns everything off except for keeping the RAM powered.

It keeps more than the RAM going. Maybe depends on the sleep state. I can charge my phone from my computer while it's sleeping, and of course wake it up from the mouse/keyboard. And I think there are even sleep states that keep the fans going. I'm sure I've had to change something on one of my computers to stop the fans when it sleeps.