Speed Up Start-up/Shut-down… Stop Doing It!
August 21, 2009 by Jason Bean
Filed under Computers
As our computers get older the start getting a little sluggish during the start-up and shut-down process. Let’s face it, as we all get a little older it takes us a little longer to get started, luckily I shut-down really quickly.
I’m not quite sure why it took me so long to figure out the way to really speed-up my start-up and shut-down process was to completely stop doing it. I should start using the “Hibernate” function instead.
Are you using this already? Why not?
Doing consulting work I’m moving from client site to client site and home and back and here and there. I used to do a complete shut-down and power-up with each move. When I stopped doing that I started saving significant amounts of time in the process.
Compare these numbers:
| Start-up: | 4 mins 17 seconds |
| Shut-down: | 1 min 25 seconds |
| Hibernate: | 45 seconds |
| Wake-up: | 25 seconds |
Again, there’s no big secret to this. We’ve had Sleep and Hibernate modes on our computers for quite awhile. Why wasn’t I using it before? Why aren’t you?
I think perhaps the reason I wasn’t was ignorance of what occurred during hibernate. The computer uses minimal to no power consumption during the process. Nothing is running so there’s no heat generated while it’s in my back-pack.
It’s just a great tip to saving a lot of time. I do recommend doing a shut-down and reboot on a regular basis though. I usually do one at least every other day.
been using hibernate for a long time… If the computer is going in my bag, I hibernate… for really short trips I’ll put it to sleep but occasionally I’ve had a machine wake up from sleep in the bag, and thats not good. (because it gets really hot)
Hibernate dumps the entire contents of RAM to a file on your hard drive and then shuts off… So you can be hibernated for a long time and use no battery