Laptop Transporting Safety??

spinkleton1

Distinguished
Jan 23, 2008
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I want to take my laptop to school in my backpack/notebook bag. I would certainly use it in the morning, however there are several hours of time throughout the day where I will be in classes where i wouldn't need the laptop or wouldn't be able to use it and would keep it zipped in my backpack.

From traveling from class to class where my laptop would be in my backpack, What state should it be in to protect the hardware components while it's zipped up in my backpack and I'm walking around with it? Obviously I can't leave it on, but which is better for this situation? Sleep or hibernate? I could always shut down but that takes more time to boot up and go through all the routines. Is hibernate safe for transporting and not using temporarily? Also I wouldn't want any heat being produced from the system as it will be in my backpack zipped shut.
 

theworminator

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Aug 24, 2006
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Sleep will produce some heat, but not much. It basically just keeps the bare bare minimums active, including RAM for temporary files (what's why it can boot up fast).

Hibernate will work fine, because it writes all the temporary stuff in the RAM to the hard drive first, then restores it when you restart. Both will shut down the hard drive, which is the moving part that's in danger of being bumped around. I usually keep my laptop on standby in my bag, and it doesn't seem to do anything bad though.