With the newer technologies, power consumption of computers are increasing day by day. Manufacturers are continuously working on reducing the power consumption. Popular OS like Windows XP, provides us many features to save power such as Stand By, Hard Disk Turn Off, Monitor Off and Hibernate etc. With the release of Vista, Microsoft has introduced, S3 Sleep state.

In the older power-saving modes (S1 sleep state), the computer could only shut down some components, such as the hard drives and monitors, after a period of time to reduce power usage. However, the CPU, fans, and other internal components continues to run at their full speed. With the new S3 power management, your computer is nearly sleeping. It maintains a minimum amount of alertness, just enough to wait for you to wake it up at any moment.

For more information about S3 Sleep state and to know how to enable S3 state in Window XP, Visit http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-66750.html?tag=gald