What's the difference between putting the computer into Stand by and to hibernate? When is more electricity used? Thanks.

Standby uses more power than hibernate, but less than when in full operation. Standby just shuts down non-essential items, depending on the CPU, slows it down, and generally goes into low-power mode but still remains on ready to spring back to life with a tap on the keyboard. Hibernates shuts down completley. But before doing so saves everything in memeory to the hard disk. If you have Hiberbate enabled on your computer you will see a file in your root folder matching the size of you memeory. This will contain a complete memeory image. When you re-boot after hibernate, this memory image reloads and you carry on exactly from where you left off with all you applications loaded and running. Stuart

http://www.a1-electronics.net/General_Interest/WinXP_TipsTweaks.shtml Hibernate. If your desktop PC computer is NOT a laptop then you can stop Hibernate. Go to your Control Panel, Power Option and select Hibernate Tab. Uncheck Hibernate. That stops that Windows XP program running and wasting resources.

A good site recommended by JohnW till I read this: >> QoS RSVP. Stop Windows using your bandwidth. Disable will stop all that Windows traffic that you cannot believe is going on. This tweak, top can reclaim anything up to 25% of your bandwidth. << One of the most mis-understood aspects of Windows XP. QoS itself does not use any bandwidth, just allocates it more effectively. See: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/qos.htm The way it works in Windows is that if you are downloading a large file and browsing at the same time, the browser will get more bandwidth than the download. With broadband QoS works better when using PPPoATM like most of us in the UK are as apposed to PPPoEthernet which is the norm in the US. Stuart