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by fbdab103 756 days ago
Sleep has become significantly worse in Windows. Many complaints of how a supposedly sleeping laptop cooked itself to death in a backpack overnight.

I also think it would be worth considering changes in underlying hardware. A modern laptop no longer has a spinning HDD, probably a much bigger battery, and a CPU that is better at entering low power modes when possible.

3 comments

It was around the third time that my laptop overheated itself while "asleep" in my backpack that I decided to return it and get a MacBook.
My work mac never seemed to overheat itself, but it would routinely be warm and out of battery when I took it out of my bag if I wasn't very careful about what was running when it went to sleep. If Outlook was left running, look out.
It is amazing that "goes to sleep properly when I close the lid" is a competitive advantage for a laptop in 2024. My X1 Carbon would bake itself in my backpack all the time but my new work mac has been perfect so far.
"Modern sleep" is such a scam. The only way to safely suspend a Windows machine now is to go into the registry and re-enable hibernation.
Indeed. My understanding is that it's a hardware issue with (largely) Intel. Sleep is really bad on Linux too and that is the reason given.
Basically, this

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...

Linus tech tips made some decent videos on the topic. But basically, what this apparently boils down to, is Microsoft wants to control system power states from the OS instead of relying on the implementation different manufacturers provide in their BIOS or something.

And there are good reasons to do so, and in concept, it's a decent idea, but the feature just isn't filly ready yet, especially in terms of it being supported by software.

There is a link to SleepStudy at the bottom of that article, which is a piece of software that, from what I understood from it's description, lets you track _why_ your laptop is hot and bothered while riding in your backpack.

In the end, it could be Software (whatever programs you run), OS, BIOS or really hardware related. Probably makes it really hard to understand what _actually_ causes the problem.

If that were the case then it should have affected Intel-based MacBooks too, and that does not seem to have been widespread.