Hi, When Windows is running the Power Plan hibernates the computer when running on low battery. If the computer is put to sleep (stand by), is this setting also effective? Example: The computer should hibernate when battery runs lower than 5 %. I put the computer to sleep at 6 % of battery level. Does the computer than hibernate at 5 %? thanks! Franz

Greetings, Windows 7 has great improvement for conserving battery power via Power Plan. If a laptop is in a sleep state and the battery starts to run low, the system will wake up and immediately go into hibernate, which requires no power to preserve memory. In your case, the computer will hibernate at 5 %. Meanwhile, a desktop computer does not typically have a battery backup, so if the computer loses power while in sleep, all the contents stored in memory will be lost (including any unsaved work). I’ve attached an official Q&A about sleep/herniate/Hybrid Sleep for your reference:http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Turn-off-a-computer-frequently-asked-questions Good luck!!

Hi Martin, Thanks for your reply! I forgot to add that I have been talking about laptops ;-) Do you know some technical details about this? Because Windows does not run at the moment the battery runs out of energy, who cares about hibernating? Is this implemented in the BIOS? Thanks, Franz

Hi Franzman, I’m not sure about what kind of lower battery action you want to look at, Sleep, Hibernate or Hybrid Sleep? Sleep : All of the open programs, documents and files are preserved in system RAM and the rest of the system is powered off. Because only memory is powered, Sleep consumes a very small amount of power—typically less than 1W on a mobile PC and typically less than 3W on a desktop PC. If the battery on your mobile PC eventually becomes critically low, Windows saves any open documents and programs to your hard disk, including information about the programs that you were using, and then shuts down your computer to prevent the battery from draining completely. Hibernate: All of the open programs, documents and files are copied from system RAM to the hard drive. The resulting file is called the Hiberfile. After RAM is copied into the Hiberfile, all of the PC is powered off. Hibernate is most often used on mobile PCs because it consumes nearly 0W on most laptops, and even if the battery does eventually drain, all of the open programs and documents are saved in the Hiberfile. Hybrid sleep is another new power-saving feature designed primarily for desktop computers. Hybrid sleep saves any open documents and programs to memory and to your hard disk, and then puts your computer into a low-power state. For more information about, you may refer to the following link:http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproperf/thread/57795972-0f05-4df4-80e0-c74057edf03b http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/01/06/windows-7-energy-efficiency.aspx Meanwhile, I’m not quite clear about “Because Windows does not run at the moment the battery runs out of energy, who cares about hibernating”, do you mean that the computer failed to go to hibernate now? If so, please make sure you have all latest Windows 7 compatible version of driver installed(especially chipset driver).In addition, to make hibernation available, follow these steps:1.Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.2.In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.3.When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.4.At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate on, and then press ENTER. 5.Type exit, and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window. How to disable and re-enable hibernation on a computer that is running Windows http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920730 For your reference:Look at "What is hybrid sleep?"http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Turn-off-a-computer-frequently-asked-questions