What's new

Poll Shut down SP3 or just close the type cover

Shut down SP3 properly or just close the type cover

  • Shut down SP3

    Votes: 28 37.3%
  • Close type cover

    Votes: 47 62.7%

  • Total voters
    75

compnovo

Active Member
I close the type cover until the SP3 starts acting wonky, then I reboot. The exception is when I travel, then I shut it down completely so it doesn't go nuts looking for WiFi when I'm driving over passes.
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Depends on what i'm doing. If i'm putting it in my bag to go to uni, there is little reason to keep the machine on standby while i'm walking through London. Might only save a fraction of a percent of the battery, but no reason to waste it if it's no skin off your back not to. But then once i'm done with a lecture, i'll normally just close the cover, because i may very well use the thing 5 minutes later.
 

JimB

Member
Remove cover then press power button to hibernate. leave it attached and close keyboard and it always comes back on.
 

zhenya

Active Member
It cold boots in 10 seconds, why use suspend at all?

With Connected Standby equipped apps means that supported apps are kept up to date even when it's sleeping and the lock screen is kept up to date with notifications. 10 seconds is a long time compared to my iPad which is unlocked and ready to go in under 1 second with touchID. As a countertop reference that I use on and off all day long, that's a huge difference. Also, if you have a complex work environment set up, there is considerable disruption caused by shutting that all down and re-opening everything.

Any computer today where people feel like they need to shut it down regularly is destined to fail.
 
With Connected Standby equipped apps means that supported apps are kept up to date even when it's sleeping and the lock screen is kept up to date with notifications. 10 seconds is a long time compared to my iPad which is unlocked and ready to go in under 1 second with touchID. As a countertop reference that I use on and off all day long, that's a huge difference. Also, if you have a complex work environment set up, there is considerable disruption caused by shutting that all down and re-opening everything.

Any computer today where people feel like they need to shut it down regularly is destined to fail.

Then that just might be the SP3. I turn mine off when on battery power so that it doesn't continue to use that battery power. Last time I left it on battery power and hit the sleep option. Woke up and 10% had been used up. Sure that's not a whole lot but I didn't need it to be doing anything while I was sleeping. I don't use it for work or anything that important other than maintaining some sites that I run on the net.
 

zhenya

Active Member
Then that just might be the SP3. I turn mine off when on battery power so that it doesn't continue to use that battery power. Last time I left it on battery power and hit the sleep option. Woke up and 10% had been used up. Sure that's not a whole lot but I didn't need it to be doing anything while I was sleeping. I don't use it for work or anything that important other than maintaining some sites that I run on the net.

This is the primary issue that I continue to have with Windows devices. If I'm not careful about what programs I leave open when I put it to sleep, like you, it will consume a great deal of power in sleep, which means that it doesn't really have a full 7-9 hours of battery life to use during a day, it could mean it has half that. Further, I don't even trust that it will go to sleep yet and not drain my battery entirely. If I were packing it for a trip and wanted to know I would have all my battery life when I arrived, I would definitely put it into hibernate manually. (I presume I can still do this, but it looks like it would take some customization to get that option back to the menu). Shutting down regularly is a ridiculous work around that belongs to the '90's.
 

bluegrass

Well-Known Member
I'll be honest. Basically I look at choosing to close the cover (when you aren't going to use the Surface for more than 10 or 20 minutes) or clicking on the icon at the top of the start page and shutting it down, a matter of whether you're lazy or not. As a matter of fact, I will go so far as to say that a lot of complaints I see in posts here are because a person is lazy when it comes to operating a computer.

I'm a micro computer tech support specialist where I work & I see computer operation laziness a lot, such as people complaining their computer is running slow. I take the call and find out the person has around 8 or so apps open plus a half dozen or so emails. They were simply too lazy or just didn't pay attention to what they were doing. I also tell people to power down their computer and reboot once in while. This helps to flush crap out of memory that the OS misses cleaning up.

Maybe having a background that goes back to the days where you had to toggle some panel switches and than feed in punch cards boot loader to just boot the system. I guess this gives me a different perspective on the Surface booting from a power off condition than most of you.
 
Last edited:

zhenya

Active Member
Honestly I think your view is from a different era, and while in the context of your specific role, having people reboot from time to time 'fixes' the problem in the immediate term, it's that old way of thinking that kept Windows on its back foot for the past few years. Reboots are a Band-Aid for poor programming.

It also illustrates a different expectation from your computer. Perhaps you still use a computer in a formal manner where you actively sit down to work with it. For me, and for many many young people today, a computer is something that I expect to be able to interact with instantly at any moment on and off all day long. Shutting down my programs and not having any notifications on the home screen is no longer acceptable.
 
Top