Apparently, most users of Windows systems know that turning off the computer in order to put it on pause, so to speak, is not always advisable, since you can use a special sleep mode or hibernation. The essence of the use of such a “falling asleep” is mostly to reduce power consumption without completely de-energizing the PC or laptop (in earlier systems, this was used to start the screensaver). Everything would be fine, but not everyone knows how to enable sleep mode in Windows 10 or which one to choose from the available ones. Let's try to briefly consider some important aspects related to these issues.
Sleep versus hibernation: which one to choose?
The first step is to decide what state the computer will be in when falling asleep. During normal sleep, the execution of allactive processes in the system are suspended, however, in the event of a complete power failure, data is not saved, and all previously running applications are disabled (they will need to be launched again).
In hibernation mode, even after a complete blackout, nothing threatens the user, since data on all active processes is saved to a special file on the hard drive (hyberfil.sys), which, however, can take up quite a lot of space. But after the power is turned on or the computer is turned on again, absolutely all programs will be able to continue their work, as if nothing had happened. The disadvantage of hibernation is often referred to as waking up too slowly (waking up from normal sleep is much faster). To do this, you can activate a special hybrid mode, in which the data will be saved, and waking up will become faster. Alas, basically this mode can only be used 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 need to call the command console on behalf of the administrator and execute the combination powercfg –a. in it
Standby (S3) is a normal sleep, with hibernation, and so everything is clear, and fast start is used to speed up the awakening, it is recommended for the default setting, 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 sleep mode in Windows 10: the simplest methods
The easiest method to put your computer to sleep, unless you have changed the initial settings on the system, is to use the main Start menu, which selects the desired item from the shutdown section.
Everyone seems to know about this.
If you figure out how to enable sleep mode on a laptop in Windows 10, you first need to open the power settings section and go to the action item when closing the lid.
In the options, just select the desired action, then save the changes.
If hibernation is not available due to the fact that hibernation is disabled, use the command line, in which you will need to run the powercfg –h on command. 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, instead of the “on” operator, the “off” attribute is introduced. It is recommended to restart the system in both cases, although it is not mandatory.
In principle, you can also enable sleep mode in Windows 10 with hotkeys. So, for example, you can call the main menu by pressing the Win button, and then select the desired action with the arrows and the enter key.
An easier solution would be to use the combination "Image" + F4 (when only the "Desktop" is visible on the screen, and not some active application that will be closed by such a combination), after which from drop-down list, you can select the desired action.
Some important settings
Basically, when talking about how to set up sleep mode, there are two main methods that can be used in Windows 10. The first is to call the settings from the system section presented in the options menu, and the second involves going to the required options through the usual "Control Panel". On laptops, the procedure is simplified by the fact that you can navigate to the settings through the RMB menu on the battery icon in the system tray. There are quite a lot of parameters here and it makes little sense to describe them all.
But the most important thing to pay special attention to is to set the options to automatically go to sleep without the need to physically activate it. In this case, 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 in Windows 10?
As for the hybrid mode, in the options of the current power plan, you need to go to the advanced settings item, and then check if its activation is supported.
If it is possible to enable it, set the required options and save the changes.
Possible errors
So, how to enable sleep mode in Windows 10 is already clear in general terms. To draw up a complete picture, a few words should be said about possible errors and malfunctions. For example, it will not work to make the computer fall asleep while downloading torrents, since the client program itself has a ban set by default. Sometimes the list of modes in the start menu may not be displayed, and to activate them in the power plan settings, you must check the corresponding item. If exiting by moving the mouse or pressing buttons and keys is not possible, you should set the permission 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.
