Solved What is the Suspended mode?

CalBear

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I have a Windows 8.1 tablet (Winbook 10.1 TW100). Its not clear if it actually powers down completely. Using the command line powercfg /batteryreport I see it has only 3 states. Active and when I use ShutDown it is Connected Standby (briefly) then Suspended. It doesn't have any Sleep modes (1 thru 4) available.

What exactly is the Suspended mode?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Dual Win 7-8 64-bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Studio XPS8100
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 3.2 GHz
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Dell 24" LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    900GB and 1.5TB
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell Optical
    Internet Speed
    10 Mb/s down 1.5 Mb/s up
    Other Info
    I worked my up from a virtual machine, to a slow 32-bit celeron and now two monitors on my XPS8100. Works great!
Definition - What does Suspend Mode mean?

Suspend mode is a low-power computer setting that helps reduce electrical power consumption by shutting down devices that are not in use. Most laptops automatically enter suspend mode when the system runs on batteries or the lid is closed. This status is often signaled by a pulsing LED-powered light.

Also known as sleep mode or standby mode.





Techopedia explains Suspend Mode

The latest standard for power management is advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI), which provides a backbone for sleep and hibernation in computers. The suspend mode in computers generally corresponds to ACPI mode S3. The absence of ACPI restricts the turning off monitors and spinning down of the hard drive.

Windows 2000 and higher versions support the suspend mode at the operating system level without the need of special drivers. The fast sleep and resume feature of Windows Vista saves volatile memory contents to the hard disk before entering suspend mode.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7260
We're moving in the right direction but I'm still confused. sleep mode appears to be a generic term for several low power modes.

My tablet reports the following sleep states are available using the command powercfg -a
Standby (Connected)
Hibernate
Fast Startup

It reports the following sleep states are not available
Standby (S1)
Standby (S2)
Standby (S3)
Hybrid Sleep - Standby (S4)

As reported above powercfg -batteryreport shows only 3 states Active, Conntected Standby (briefly), and Suspended (apparently the "off" state).

So its not clear if "Suspended" is actually a power off mode or one of the power conservation modes. Perhaps it is actually Hibernate.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Dual Win 7-8 64-bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Studio XPS8100
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 3.2 GHz
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Dell 24" LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    900GB and 1.5TB
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell Optical
    Internet Speed
    10 Mb/s down 1.5 Mb/s up
    Other Info
    I worked my up from a virtual machine, to a slow 32-bit celeron and now two monitors on my XPS8100. Works great!
Standby connected is a newer mode that allows the screen to be turned off but keeps things like Wifi and other network traffic going (turned on) so it can receive notifications and background apps can still use the Wifi.
From the MSDN site -
Starting with Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, connected standby is a new low-power state that features extremely low power consumption while maintaining Internet connectivity.

Hibernate is a traditional mode that takes the entire state of the computer and writes it to hard drive and then shuts the computer completely down. When you power the computer back on, it reads the state and restores everything as it was prior to the shutdown.

From elsewhere on this site -
Fast Startup (aka: hybrid boot or hybrid Shutdown) is a new feature in Windows 8 to help your PC start up faster after shutting down. When turned on, Windows 8 does this by using a hybrid shutdown (a partial hibernate) method that saves only the kernal session and device drivers (system information) to the hibernate (hiberfil.sys) file on disk instead of closing it when you shut down your PC. This also makes the hiberfil.sys file to be much smaller than what hibernate would use (often 4GB or more). When you start your PC again, Windows 8 uses that saved system information to resume your system instead of having to do a cold boot to fully restart it. Using this technique with boot gives a significant advantage for boot times, since reading the hiberfile in and reinitializing drivers is much faster on most systems (30-70% faster on most systems tested). If you have a motherboard with UEFI, then fast startup will be even faster.

For
Standby (S1)
Standby (S2)
Standby (S3)
Hybrid Sleep - Standby (S4)

Please read:
System Sleeping States (Windows Drivers)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Nokia Lumia 2520
    CPU
    Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 800
    Memory
    2GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    10.1"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    32GB SSD
    Case
    Asus Case
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Wedge Keyboard
    Mouse
    Bornd Bluetooth Mouse
    Browser
    IE 11
Lots of good information but there is still some confusion regarding my tablet. It does have the Fast Startup mode which may be what the "suspended state" is, however, I don't find a hiberfil.sys file in C: or Windows or Windows/System32.

Its interesting that there is no way to power off the tablet. The USB port is "hot" even if shutdown is requested. Leaving an optical mouse connected will run down the battery. Again an indication that "suspended" may be the same as "fast start".

Here are some results from the powercfg command.

powercfg -a

The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby (Connected)
Hibernate
Fast Startup


The following sleep states are not available on this system:
Standby (S1)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.


Standby (S2)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.


Standby (S3)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
This standby state is disabled when connected standby is supported.


Hybrid Sleep
Standby (S3) is not available.

powercfg -batteryreport

[h=2]Recent usage[/h]Power states over the last 3 days
START TIMESTATESOURCECAPACITY REMAINING
2014-11-10
09:07:33​
Suspended94 %28,276 mWh
09:08:08​
Connected standbyBattery94 %28,276 mWh
09:12:40​
Suspended93 %28,279 mWh
09:13:15​
Connected standbyBattery93 %28,279 mWh
09:13:40​
ActiveBattery93 %28,279 mWh
09:13:40​
Connected standbyBattery93 %28,279 mWh
09:13:40​
Suspended93 %28,279 mWh
09:14:15​
Connected standbyBattery93 %28,279 mWh
09:14:40​
ActiveBattery92 %27,688 mWh
09:18:42​
ActiveAC91 %27,325 mWh
09:29:43​
ActiveBattery93 %29,262 mWh
09:35:00​
Suspended91 %27,311 mWh
10:00:49​
ActiveBattery89 %26,413 mWh
10:00:49​
Suspended89 %26,413 mWh
10:06:32​
ActiveBattery89 %26,427 mWh
10:07:52​
ActiveAC88 %26,250 mWh
10:57:24​
Connected standbyAC100 %31,768 mWh
10:57:25​
Suspended100 %31,768 mWh
15:18:03​
ActiveBattery97 %29,436 mWh
15:51:19​
Connected standbyBattery89 %26,812 mWh
15:51:19​
Suspended89 %26,812 mWh
15:55:44​
ActiveBattery89 %26,474 mWh
16:12:00​
Suspended85 %25,362 mWh
17:38:27​
ActiveBattery84 %24,770 mWh
17:42:00​
Connected standbyBattery83 %24,582 mWh
17:42:00​
Suspended83 %24,582 mWh
18:45:10​
ActiveBattery82 %24,224 mWh
18:49:18​
ActiveAC81 %23,984 mWh
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Dual Win 7-8 64-bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Studio XPS8100
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 3.2 GHz
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Dell 24" LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    900GB and 1.5TB
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell Optical
    Internet Speed
    10 Mb/s down 1.5 Mb/s up
    Other Info
    I worked my up from a virtual machine, to a slow 32-bit celeron and now two monitors on my XPS8100. Works great!
type "powercfg /h /size <percentage_size (0 – 100)> "
in Command Prompt as Administrator window.

(it is typically set to 75%)



How to check if hibernation is on

If the file hiberfil.sys listed from the following command, the hibernation is turned on.
dir c:\ /ah



You sure it's not there?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Nokia Lumia 2520
    CPU
    Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 800
    Memory
    2GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    10.1"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    32GB SSD
    Case
    Asus Case
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Wedge Keyboard
    Mouse
    Bornd Bluetooth Mouse
    Browser
    IE 11
I have no interest in turning on hibernation which not only uses power but keeps programs running. It is not provided as a user selection by this special version of Windows 8.1 for this tablet and there is no obvious way to re-install windows if something goes wrong. My interest is turning the power off but it isn't a big deal as my usage is mostly where charging is readily available.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Dual Win 7-8 64-bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Studio XPS8100
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 3.2 GHz
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Dell 24" LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    900GB and 1.5TB
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell Optical
    Internet Speed
    10 Mb/s down 1.5 Mb/s up
    Other Info
    I worked my up from a virtual machine, to a slow 32-bit celeron and now two monitors on my XPS8100. Works great!
Hibernation uses no power. It's designed to allow you store your settings on the hard drive and then shut off.

Maybe in Windows 8.1 using the new hybrid hibernation it uses some power. But, to allow my tablet to completely power on from an off status in less than 30 seconds and be ready to go is worth it IMO.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Nokia Lumia 2520
    CPU
    Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 800
    Memory
    2GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    10.1"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    32GB SSD
    Case
    Asus Case
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Wedge Keyboard
    Mouse
    Bornd Bluetooth Mouse
    Browser
    IE 11
Hibernation uses no power. It's designed to allow you store your settings on the hard drive and then shut off.

Maybe in Windows 8.1 using the new hybrid hibernation it uses some power. But, to allow my tablet to completely power on from an off status in less than 30 seconds and be ready to go is worth it IMO.
I believe you are right about the power. If you leave a program running is it reactivated when you power back up?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Dual Win 7-8 64-bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Studio XPS8100
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 3.2 GHz
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Dell 24" LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    900GB and 1.5TB
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell Optical
    Internet Speed
    10 Mb/s down 1.5 Mb/s up
    Other Info
    I worked my up from a virtual machine, to a slow 32-bit celeron and now two monitors on my XPS8100. Works great!
I am unsure. I think this is how it works. Maybe someone can correct me. I think if you are watching a DVD movie or playing a game like Borderlands, I don't think it will save those. It might not hybernate at all if those are running. But, if you have something like a Word document or an E-book up on the screen, I believe it will save that and reopen those items when you come back out of hybernate.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Nokia Lumia 2520
    CPU
    Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 800
    Memory
    2GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    10.1"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    32GB SSD
    Case
    Asus Case
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Wedge Keyboard
    Mouse
    Bornd Bluetooth Mouse
    Browser
    IE 11
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