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Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

dell.com

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Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#401

Post by Biganon »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #387

This is one of the main reasons I just returned my XPS 13 9310 and got a Framework instead. The sleep/standby/hibernate stuff is just bad. I don’t know if it is a Dell problem or a Windows problem or what, but it’s terrible. I’m primarily a Mac user but I haven’t had the same issue with other Windows laptops and the Dell has standby issues in Linux too so it’s just bad. And loud. And hot.

I'm on Arch, and it gets hot in my bag when in sleep mode. Hibernate is certainly good though, since it's basically powered off, but I haven't tested because in my experience hibernation on Linux is kinda finicky to get to work flawlessly

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#402

Post by everdrive »

Years ago (~2010) I learned that companies sell laptops which can't cool themselves properly. I had an Acer "gaming laptop," which from the factory had fans which didn't sufficiently cool the CPU. After about 2 years of normal use, it cooked its thermal paste, and would shut off under even moderate use / stress.

This is obviously a different situation than what's occurring with Dell laptops, but it's not too far afield. When I bought the Acer, I never even considered reading up on cooling. I figured I'd only have to understand cooling if I built a computer myself: surely one from a manufacturer would already be able to cool itself sufficiently. Well, it turned out I was wrong. Keeping laptops cool is actually a pretty tough engineering problem, and too many companies and consumers aren't will to pay the price (either in higher dollar amount, or constrained capabilities) to ensure that this a standard.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#403

Post by algismo »

I own XPS 13 9380 with Windows 10. Same mess with the sleep. I have to carry the laptop in the bag when commuting. You never know what it is doing when lid is closed. There is no lights on the laptop to indicate its state so I just usually put it to my ear and listen until the fan goes off after closing the lid. Then it is semi safe to put it into the bag. Feels like stone age.

Things are just getting worse with Windows and those standard PCs. I never understood why they moved to that S1 idle when S3 was fulfilling basic needs. This family Intel+Windows starts to irritate me. I am seriously considering either fully moving to Linux or to Apple Silicon and Mac OS.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#404

Post by masklinn »

nosianu wrote: post #254
kblev wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows keeps waking up for random things, the problem is getting worse with every Windows release and Microsoft keeps removing more and more controls. Just a few days ago I spent hours trying to fix the constant wake-ups. This time it was a waketimer set by the StartMenuExperienceHost.exe process! [1] Microsoft already removed the Power Management tabs in Device Manager for most devices (mouse, etc.). They also remo…

> Windows keeps waking up for random things, the problem is getting worse with every Windows release I resorted to removing the power plug from the PC every evening after it kept turning itself on during the night semi-randomly. It was in "suspend to disk" mode, whatever that is in more technical power-save jargon terms, not just "suspend-to-ram". I spent a significant amount of time going through Windows event logs…

> I resorted to removing the power plug from the PC every evening after it kept turning itself on during the night semi-randomly. It was in "suspend to disk" mode, whatever that is in more technical power-save jargon terms, not just "suspend-to-ram".

In "Suspend to RAM", the RAM is kept powered when the computer is shut down, and thus doesn't have to be touched on wake, but it means the computer has to stay powered the whole time.

In "Suspend to disk", the entire RAM is written to disk (which can take some time especially with an HDD) then the computer shuts down entirely, on wake the OS will restore RAM from disk before resuming. The need to read data back from disk to RAM makes the wake costlier, but because everything's on disk the computer can be completely shutdown.

The two can be combined into mode where data is written to disk (making going to sleep slower) then the computer enters "suspend to RAM" mode. If the computer is resumed normally it is restored from RAM, but if the computers suffers power loss it's restored from disk. Either way the computer doesn't have to boot from scratch and all the working set should be recovered. IIRC it's the default behaviour for macOS laptops, microsoft calls it "hybrid sleep".

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#405

Post by spijdar »

algismo wrote: post #403

I own XPS 13 9380 with Windows 10. Same mess with the sleep. I have to carry the laptop in the bag when commuting. You never know what it is doing when lid is closed. There is no lights on the laptop to indicate its state so I just usually put it to my ear and listen until the fan goes off after closing the lid. Then it is semi safe to put it into the bag. Feels like stone age. Things are just getting worse with Wind…

FYI, these computers may lack proper firmware support to deep sleep on Linux as well, and will use s2idle sleep.

I believe ARM Macs use the same type of sleep, only with more polished firmware and better vertical integration with the OS.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#406

Post by ecf »

RGamma wrote: post #2

Clickbaity title. It says > Under no circumstances should you leave a laptop powered on and in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag, backpack, or in an overhead bin. The PC will overheat as a result of that action. Any resulting damage will not be covered by the Dell warranty. Now how a hibernated laptop could overheat..

I leave my MacBook’s lid closed for a week and I can open it to maybe 5% battery drain.

The article should explicitly state…

> Under no circumstances should you leave a Windows laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

…because other, more competent, manufacturers have figured this out. Windows and their OEMs simply suck, there is no sugarcoating it.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#407

Post by og42 »

According to archive.org[0], looks like just now has Dell removed the red highlighted part that mentions the warranty. When I looked at the page earlier today, it was still there.

``` Under no circumstances should you leave a laptop powered on and in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag, backpack, or in an overhead bin. ```

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210624044948/https://www.dell....

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#408

Post by masklinn »

pomian wrote: post #377
birdman3131 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hibernate is the best option by far but they seem to want to push away from it.

Yes. I agree. It seems to be getting harder to set up hibernate as an option. Regular (non HN) users might not even figure out that hibernate is a possibility. But it definitely is a better option than sleep.

> But it definitely is a better option than sleep.

It's the better option if you don't mind the longer time waking up, since RAM has to be restored from disk.

Otherwise, sleep should be backed by hibernation on all machines (it certainly is on mac laptops, and I think it is on windows as well): in case of power loss during sleep, the machine falls back to waking from hibernation, but if there was no power loss it wakes way faster. This is especially useful for people who move around a lot during the day and will close the laptop, move around, and reopen it. While things have gotten better with modern SSDs, having to restore 16 to 32GB from disk to RAM is far from instant-on.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#409

Post by 6jQhWNYh »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #387

This is one of the main reasons I just returned my XPS 13 9310 and got a Framework instead. The sleep/standby/hibernate stuff is just bad. I don’t know if it is a Dell problem or a Windows problem or what, but it’s terrible. I’m primarily a Mac user but I haven’t had the same issue with other Windows laptops and the Dell has standby issues in Linux too so it’s just bad. And loud. And hot.

It's definitely a Windows issue. I've had it with non-XPS Dells and completely different brands like Eluktronics.

Re: Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag

#410

Post by smhenderson »

gambiting wrote: post #383
kblev wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows keeps waking up for random things, the problem is getting worse with every Windows release and Microsoft keeps removing more and more controls. Just a few days ago I spent hours trying to fix the constant wake-ups. This time it was a waketimer set by the StartMenuExperienceHost.exe process! [1] Microsoft already removed the Power Management tabs in Device Manager for most devices (mouse, etc.). They also remo…

My previous PC would wake up every night around 1am and I could never figure out why. I disabled every single wake timer, all kinds of wake permissions on devices, yet it would always wake up in the middle of the night. The power event in pc management only said "woken by: unknown source".

I do some support work for a friend and his kid's school laptops. All Lenovo/Win 10.

He complained about the same thing, in this case on laptops that were completely shutdown the night before. In the end we tracked it down to the Lenovo Vantage service.

I assume it was powering on the laptop to check for updates but I could find no log or record of it doing so. But, once we removed that software the issue went away completely.

Anecdotal I know and I even told him it could be something else, that removing the software may have changed something related but not from Lenovo, etc. But in the end, a few weeks later that is, he confirmed that since we did that, they did not have the problem again.

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