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I have my Lenovo X220 running Windows 7 Pro configured to (on battery):
1. Sleep after 20 minutes
2. Hibernate after 45 minutes

However it seems like whenever I leave my laptop for a long period, I find it has totally drained the battery and shut off.

I can invoke a hibernate from the start menu, so that capability is enabled.

Is Windows not capable of invoking a Hibernate from within the sleep state? The FAQ implies otherwise:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Sleep-and-hibernation-frequently-asked-questions

Will sleep eventually drain my laptop battery?
Sleep requires an extremely small amount of power. If your laptop battery charge gets critically low while the computer is asleep, Windows automatically puts the laptop into hibernation mode.

So, technically, the above statement could be true, perhaps only the critical battery level event can wake the machine from sleep to invoke hibernation (as opposed to the Hibernate after minutes setting, which I am trying to use).

Perhaps the Lenovo power manager is overriding the Windows one? Looking in the Lenovo power manager, I have no idea how one tells if it is "active", if it is overriding windows power management, etc.

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  • Interesting question. From what I remember, XP used to switch from standby to hibernate automatically when the hibernate time was reached. What happens when you say set sleep to 2 minuted and hibernate to 4?
    – AndrejaKo
    Commented Nov 7, 2011 at 7:02

3 Answers 3

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Yes, you can have the Thinkpad go into hibernation from the sleep state. If the machine in connected to power, you can make it work by setting for sleep in 20 and hibernate in 25. This causes hibernation to kick in 25 minutes after sleep has started.

However, if you are running on batteries (as most people are who wants a sleeping machine to hibernate), it does require a BIOS configuration change. In the BIOS choose Config, Power and enable "Timer Wake with Battery Operation".

Warning: Lenovo do not recommend you do that as it may damage your hard disk if you are moving the machine around when it decides it is time to go from sleep to hibernate. Also you have to be sure about other scheduled tasks so they don't risk waking the machine and draining your battery.

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  • INTERESTING. re: "Also you have to be sure about other scheduled tasks so they don't risk waking the machine and draining your battery." So, prior to changing that BIOS setting, scheduled tasks wouldn't wake the system, but now they will?
    – tbone
    Commented Mar 14, 2012 at 13:18
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Sleep mode definitely uses power.

I don't think that it can switch from Sleep to Hibernate without switching on, so it may be worth checking if your power settings are configured as well as they can be to make the sleep consumption as little as possible.

Lenovo have a utility for this: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Windows-7-Knowledge-Base/Automatically-fix-power-consumption-in-Win-7/ta-p/237456

Allowing things like USB and Wireless to wake the laptop also has an effect on sleep. If these things are not important to you, then disable them. That will allow it to sleep for much longer.

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Near the end of the faq you linked to, it is stated.

Will sleep eventually drain my laptop battery?

Sleep requires an extremely small amount of power. If your laptop battery charge gets critically low while the computer is asleep, Windows automatically puts the laptop into hibernation mode.

So apparently it's something that windows can do. I don't know if it's possible to change that behaviour, but I'd like to do that as well.

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