What happens when laptop lid is closed?

[sling-shot]

When a laptop lid is closed, I see a lot of hard disk activity followed by the power LED going into a blinking state. (This observation applied particularly to my HP Mini, might apply to others too)

I believe the system is going into a type of suspension, ?suspend to RAM. Under this state will the hard disk be shutdown?

I basically want to know is it safe to transport the laptop during this lid-closed state in a car. I have a 2 hour break in my work during noon in which I go home and come back. I take the laptop with me. If it is safe to carry the laptop in this state then I will just do it because it saves time shutting down/hibernating and then waiting for it to come back up.

-SS.

[T6]

a mini is a netbook, if you are concerned about the durability of hard disk remember that is a device designed to tolerate some abuse and usually the first thing that dies on a netbook or laptop is the hard disk but usually takes 3 or 4 years, right in time to replace the whole machine

you can set your netbook or laptop to suspend to ram or suspend to disk

what desktop are you using? this option depends on the desktop you use

[sling-shot]

My desktop is an assembled one described in my signature. I had tried putting that to suspend to RAM once but it did not wake up and I have left it at that. It does not matter to me now because once I finish using it I shut it down anyway.

I am concerned about shocks sustained by a live hard disk of my netbook getting damaged by movement particularly while in a car or an accidental brush against a door. If Suspend to RAM shuts the hard disk down then I would not have to worry about it. Thats all.

Thanks for your attention.

-SS.

[T6]

if suspend to ram doesn't want to work for you i would change system to suspend to disk, shuts down machine and stores in swap what was on ram to restore later

suspend to ram turns off what it can or what is allowed to, including hard disk but some machines won't turn it off so it will keep spinning, this was common in older machines and some desktops doing this mode and that is why most people preferred a fast boot so they could turn off machine than use suspend to ram or to disk

if you are worried the easiest and most simple thing to do is turn off the machine

to use suspend to disk in kde4 left click on the battery monitor in the task bar

this will call a menu with some options to including a button with a tool in it, it will allow you configure what the system will do when you close the lid on each power condition, battery, connected and low battery

[The Chief]

Mine doesn't offer 'hibernate' (suspend to disk) as an option.  So I have set it to shut down when the lid is closed.

If I let it suspend to RAM, what happens when the battery runs down?  Does it then try to suspend to disk?  Or just die, ungracefully?

[menotu]

I believe the head on the hard drive gets "parked" when in sleep and standby mode and the spindle goes to "rest" mode.

If the lid gets jarred etc this could wake the system and make the drive "active" which could crash the head into a platter so it's really a matter of weighing the probability/possibilty of that happening - and the consequences - against waiting a minute or two for the laptop to boot from cold.

But you may want to await a more definitive answer, or even go to the hard drive manufacturers web site and check the FAQ or any forums they may/should have.

[T6]

"If I let it suspend to RAM, what happens when the battery runs down?  Does it then try to suspend to disk?  Or just die, ungracefully?"

i was reading in wikipedia about that and there is some machines doing suspend to ram and suspend to disk simultaneously for this situation but i don't see where i can check this, if my machine is capable or not and how to enable it

[Was_Just19]

"If I let it suspend to RAM, what happens when the battery runs down?  Does it then try to suspend to disk?  Or just die, ungracefully?"

i was reading in wikipedia about that and there is some machines doing suspend to ram and suspend to disk simultaneously for this situation but i don't see where i can check this, if my machine is capable or not and how to enable it

Search Synaptic for the package "suspend" .....  which should already be installed in your KDE OS .....

/etc/suspend.conf  I think is the config file ....  but not sure ....

[The Chief]

I have that file, so apparently it is installed, but everything is commented out...