User Guide - Windows 7

7 Managing power
Your computer can operate on either battery power or external power. When the computer is running on
battery power only and an AC power source is not available to charge the battery, it is important to monitor
and conserve the battery charge.
Initiating Sleep and Hibernation
Windows has two power-saving states, Sleep and Hibernation.
Sleep—The Sleep state is automatically initiated after a period of inactivity when running on battery
power or on external power. Your work is saved to memory, allowing you to resume your work very
quickly. You can also initiate Sleep manually. For more information, see Manually initiating and exiting
Sleep on page 39.
Hibernation—The Hibernation state is automatically initiated if the battery reaches a critical level. In the
Hibernation state, your work is saved to a hibernation le and the computer powers down.
NOTE: You can manually initiate Hibernation. See Manually initiating and exiting Sleep on page 39
and Manually initiating and exiting Hibernation (select products only) on page 39.
CAUTION: To reduce the risk of possible audio and video degradation, loss of audio or video playback
functionality, or loss of information, do not initiate Sleep while reading from or writing to a disc or an external
media card.
NOTE: You cannot initiate any type of networking connection or perform any computer functions while the
computer is in the Sleep state or in Hibernation.
Manually initiating and exiting Sleep
You can initiate Sleep in any of the following ways:
Close the display.
Select Start, click the arrow next to the Shut down button, and then click Sleep.
To exit Sleep:
Briey press the power button.
If the display is closed, open the display.
Press a key on the keyboard.
Tap the TouchPad.
When the computer exits Sleep, the power lights turn on and your work returns to the screen.
NOTE: If you have set a password to be required on wakeup, you must enter your Windows password before
the computer will return to the screen.
Manually initiating and exiting Hibernation (select products only)
You can enable user-initiated Hibernation and change other power settings and timeouts using Power
Options.
Initiating Sleep and Hibernation 39