Sleep Mode

Sleep is a low energy power saving mode that is similar to pausing a movie or television show. This mode can often be referred to as “Standby” or as used in Linux “Suspend” mode. This mode significantly saves electrical consumption compared to leaving your system on and you are able to resume right where you started pre-sleep mode without having to start over or reboot your computer. When in Sleep, power is cut from components apart from the RAM which include the hard drive, display and ports. Ram uses the little power it needs to enable and maintain data.

Sleep mode stops actions on your computer and stores any open applications or documents into your computer’s RAM, enabling you to pick up from where you left off within moments your computer awakens. The computer’s data is maintained in RAM. RAM which is acronym for Random Access Memory is a hardware device that allows information to be stored and retrieved on a computer. RAM has a volatile memory and uses flash memory which requires power to keep the data active. If the computer is shut down or turned off, all data contained in its memory is lost.

To put your system in sleep mode, most computer systems are set to enter sleep mode after a period of inactivity and laptops often enter when they are closed. Sleep mode may also be activated through your operating system’s power menu. A computer usually awakens from sleep through pressing the power button, touching a key, or moving the mouse.