Why Stand By?

[Steve CDN]

Why should one put their their PC in Stand by mode rather than shut down or leave it an with a screen saver running?

If the computer is connected to a DSL connection, is the connection  on  while in standby?  Is stand by safer to protect against hackers rather than leaving it on all the time?

What actually takes place in stand by mode?

 

[Ned]

The only reason to use standby is to conserve electricity when not using the computer.  In my experience, some peripherals may not wake up properly when coming out of standby so have avoided using that mode.  This is a problem mostly on notebook computers where PC Cards may not wake up.  Usually removing and reinserting such a card will wake it up.  Hibernation is almost as quick to restart and has the advantage of doing a restart of the entire computer including the peripherals and I find it to be much more reliable.

 

[Steve CDN]

Hibernation is almost as quick to restart and has the advantage of doing a restart of the entire computer including the peripherals and I find it to be much more reliable.

So do I understand correctly that hibernation is different from standby in that hibernation is a state which is set in Power Options and does not turn off peripherals, whereas standby does turn off peripherals? 

How is a PC  brought out of hibernation?

 

[Ned]

Standby leaves the processor running in a reduced power state and generally powers off the peripherals.  Hibernate writes the contents of RAM to the hard drive and powers off the computer.  Standby will not survive a loss of power while hibernate will.