How's it keep info without power?

I recently unplugged my computer during a storm because of power surges and then later for a few hours the power to the house was out due to the hail storm and tornados near by. Well I find it fasinating that when I plugged the computer back in after the storms that it kept all I have though no power during the few hours was going to it. How does it do this keeping of windows and everything without power? Also and this is a seperate issue not replated to the above question, but recently when my computer goes into sleep mode and things go to low power when I press a key for things to come back I've been seeing strange things. Sometimes for a second I would see either a blue screen or a dos prompt with writting and it would go away. Next it would restart. Or if you wake it up a device like a flash drive you can't navigate to by My Computer. Or not be able to find the ip, or not be able to detect my router. Or on occasion I have received a message that would say "Windows has recovered from a Serious error". And it would ask me to send the error report. Now before this I was recieving more frequent error messages until I rolled back to a previous video card driver update. From what I've been told by a staff member at Obsiden Entertainment partnered with Lucasarts who made the KOTOR series, they say the graphical issues I was having at the time many told them about, but ATI doesn't beta test their driver updates. Nor are they doing anyting to fix the grapic issues. After I rooled back to the November 11, 2007 Driver updates things were better and I had less error messages other than the occasinal windows recoved from error message I just said. Things like this that make me think possibly hardware related. I've had this XP based computer since 2001. Coulld something be waring out? I mean if like I said something's not detected like I said earlier, restarting, or shuting down and turning it back on fixes things and it works fine. What do you think?

Hi toruser,
I can't answer all your questions as I would need to physically examine/test your machine, especially in regard to the video/driver/acceleration issues you may be experiencing.

However with regard to the wonderful ability your machine has to remember stuff even when the power is off, the situation is much clearer.

Almost certainly you are not" shutting down" your machine in the conventional way but are using the "Hibernate" facility…….when you do this Windows makes a copy of everything that was happening at the time the "Hibernate" command executed and then copies it to your hard disc, so that when you power up your machine again…..everything was just as you left it…..its a clever bit of kit and is included in the Windows Advanced Power Configuration Interface utility, known to its friends as APCI and accessible via Control Panel.(look for Power Options.)

This option is sometimes confused with standby but this is quite different as although cutting down considerably on power consumption it still uses a tiny amount of power to retain information in memory.

Here's a link to a Microsoft page that although referring mainly to laptop/notebook computers, will at least provide you with an overview.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/m…/hibernate.mspx

The standard fix for your video issues (after you have updated/rolled back your drivers) would be to replace you video card, install new drivers (initially setting acceleration to "Full" but backing off a bit in the event of trouble) and then see how you go.

A computer of 2001 vintage, could go on for many years and provide reliable service providing your hardware maintenance procedures are being diligently applied and your standard operating procedures ensure that the machine is de-cluttered regularly. (temp files, cache etc) unused programmes removed, defragged as required, and all required patches and updates are immediately installed. Good operating procedures will also help keep your machine free of malware or other "undesirable elements"

The life of component parts is decidedly finite, and, just for an example, hard disc manufacturer's will often quote a Meantime Before Failure (MTBF) figure often given in hundreds of thousands of hours for their products. As computers ( unlike aircraft) rarely have" hour meters" installed in them it is difficult for the average user to relate this to his or her's typical usage.

What is clear though from my own personal experience of repairing machines, is that hardware problems often occur after 3 or more years use and when a machine is 4 years old or more the problems tend to increase.

Academics have carried out important research into some of these areas and here's a link to start you off:

http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38693

Just to put the other side of the picture I have customers who are running 15 - 20 year old machines with DOS as the operating system and with of course DOS Word Processing and other software………………. that all work faultlessly. ( my good maintenance I suppose!…)

I would suggest though that you ensure that your backup/archive/copy of all the important stuff on your machine (everything that is important to you) is always 100% accurate, up to date and reproducible.

Hope all this info helps
Regards
paws