Standby

Is it bad to leave your computer in Standby mode for long periods of time? I usually put it in stand by when I am going to be gone for a few houurs and don't want my Tornado blasting the house away. Also how does standby work does it supply enugh power to the RAM and other components to where they retain their info? Thanks

I know hibernate works well...it saves all of the data being processed in the ram to your HDD, and *shuts* down the computer. Then you press the power button, and BAM!, right back in...

It should be fine to leave it in suspend. As for how it works, it depends on what you mean by "suspend." You are probably putting it in S3 ("suspend to ram") where the PSU and cpu are basically turned off. The ram is refreshed at a reduced rate off of the +5VSB line in order to retain data.

For a good description of ACPI S-states, check out this post on the Ars forums:
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=77909774&m=5560975395

Hi, yes, it is OK ntebook-wise.... but remember that you will wear your battery in this state...
I use to hibernate my lappy every time except when 'just moving' to another work place.

Nice link, Gnufsh. Good info there.

GunnerMan, while you're away, the computer can be folding instead