# Darn Hibernation Mode...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darn-hibernation-mode/238480>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 6, 2004, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darn-hibernation-mode/238480 "2004-04-06T02:24:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darn-hibernation-mode/238480/1 "2004-04-06T02:24:24Z")

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How do I get my PC out of hibernation mode? I have searched help, and I cannot for the life of me figure it out. I **always** have to reboot.

It does not respond to the mouse, or the keyboard. What is the point? Why doesn’t the darn thing just turn off?

I have Windows XP. Thanks in advance.

Regards,  
Shodan

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**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darn-hibernation-mode/238480/2 "2004-04-06T02:48:23Z")

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hibernation turns your pc off while saving your desktop, sleep mode puts your pc on standyby without turning it off. the former is meant to save power when you’re away for a long time without closing the applications you have open; the latter is meant to save power when you’re away for a short while.

if you do not like hibernation right click desktop/screensaver/power to turn it off.

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**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darn-hibernation-mode/238480/3 "2004-04-06T02:54:31Z")

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Usually, you have to poke the power switch, as if you were turning it on, to wake up.

By the way, the full path to the settings you want are:

Right-click the Desktop  
Select Properties  
Select Screen Saver tab  
Click Power… in bottom-right corner  
At the bottm, set System hibernates to Never  
Click Hibernate tab  
Un-check Enable hibernation box to recover a chunk of disk space - generally equal to how much RAM your system has  
Click Apply, OK, OK to back your way out of the dialog boxes and return to the Desktop.

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**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darn-hibernation-mode/238480/4 "2004-04-06T12:15:01Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Usually, you have to poke the power switch, as if you were turning it on, to wake up.

I am not sure I understand this. I have to press and hold down the power switch to reboot the PC out of hibernation. Then I start from a cold reboot. This is what I did when I got the blue screen of death when Windows could not shut down correctly, under my old Windows 98. Which was about half the time. grrrrrr…

Are you saying to press the power button briefly? When the PC hibernates, the power light is yellow, not green as when the PC is running. And the power light is out completely when the PC is turned off.

Dumb computers.

Thanks for the answers.

Regards,  
Shodan

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**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darn-hibernation-mode/238480/5 "2004-04-06T17:24:27Z")

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Some motherboards and BIOS chipsets handle hibernation OK and some don’t, which is why I just disable it and not worry about being unable to revive a PC without a hard restart. ie: kill the power, then endure the “You didn’t turn me off properly, you numbskull!” errors.

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**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2004, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/darn-hibernation-mode/238480/6 "2004-04-06T17:56:59Z")

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If you quickly press and release the power switch and it does not come out of hibernation, then your system probably cannot handle hibernation.