What is the difference in turning my computer off and hibernating my computer?

I want to hibernate so is my computer completly off? I don't want it to be still using electric.

What is the difference in turning my computer off and hibernating my computer?
If you have Windows XP, then yes, the computer turns completely off after saving everything to the hard drive, so even if you pulled the plug and then plugged it back in, it would resume from where u left off. Powering off obviously powers off. In windows vista, there is a new mode with hibernate witch uses a minimal amount of power, but can also be configured to turn off entirely.





(TO GUY ON TOP....standby uses power, hibernate does not)
Reply:hibernating simple saves the files you're working on, onto your hard disk before ur computer turns off so that when you restart ur machine, you continue working from where you stopped.
Reply:Your computer only uses NO electric when completely turned off.
Reply:Hibernation means the computer is still "on" but is using minimal resources. It would still be using electricity. If you want to make sure it isn't using electricity, turn it off and unplug it.
Reply:When you turn the computer off. It's off. There is no electricity in it. All the information in the RAM goes away, the Harddrive discs stop spinning, it's dead. When you hibernate the computer, everything will stay up, the computer will still lose power but things will still be up and running when you resume including whatever you were doing before you Hibernated the computer.





Believe it or not the most stressful time for a computer is when it's first turned on because it has a surge of electricity going through it's parts. But for Windows if you were going to do one or the other, I'd shut down over Hibernating. Because Windows can be unstable at times, you're more likely to have O/S mess-ups or corrupt files by Hibernating a computer in XP.





If you don't want to shut the computer off at all. I wouldn't hibernate it, I'd just let it sit in Standby.





Overall though leaving a computer on, is healthier for it than shutting it off and turning it back on, over and over again.
Reply:Turning your computer off basically shuts it down completely and when you turn it back on you go back to a 'fresh' state.





Hibernating stores a snapshot of your current working memory on to disk which gets loaded the next time you turn your computer on. Depending on how the system implements this you should be able to continue where you stopped prior to hibernating. if you had applications open they should still be open along with any documents you were working on.