State of S3 – Your Laptop is no Laptop anymore – a personal Rant

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overview of S3 vs S0ix / “Modern Standby”

  • S3 (“suspend to RAM”) used to power almost everything off except RAM; machines could sleep for days with minimal drain.
  • Many new laptops only support S0ix/s2idle (“Modern Standby”), where the system is mostly on with the screen off.
  • Users report S0ix routinely drains batteries overnight, runs fans, makes laptops hot, and sometimes causes crashes or “unexpected shutdowns.”

User Experience Problems

  • Common pattern: close lid → put laptop in bag → later find it dead and/or very hot.
  • Windows often wakes devices in “sleep” for updates, networking, or mysterious activity; sometimes gets stuck at BitLocker prompts or login screens.
  • Some OEMs reportedly advise fully shutting down before putting laptops in bags.
  • A few users say S0ix works fine on specific business models (e.g., some ThinkPads/EliteBooks), but this seems inconsistent.

Hibernation and SSD Wear

  • Many switch to hibernate (S4) as a safer “real off” alternative.
  • Debate over SSD wear: rough calculations show even frequent hibernation over years typically uses a modest fraction of modern SSD endurance.
  • Some still dislike spending a large chunk of TBW budget just on sleep; others argue the machine will be replaced first.

Platform Comparisons

  • macOS laptops are widely praised for reliable, instant-feeling sleep and low drain, especially Apple Silicon, though some report:
    • Apps (Teams, Parallels, IntelliJ, Chrome/WebRTC) preventing sleep or waking dGPU.
    • Occasional overheating or battery loss during “Power Nap.”
  • Linux: when S3 is available (“Linux sleep” in some BIOSes), suspend works very well on certain ThinkPads and similar; S0ix on Linux can still drain, but often less chaotically than Windows.
  • Some users fall back to always shutting down or configuring fast boot/hibernation.

Blame, Motives, and Design Critique

  • Many blame Microsoft for:
    • Rebranding S3 as “legacy”/“Linux sleep” and pushing S0ix as “modern.”
    • Prioritizing background updates, notifications, telemetry, and enterprise needs over predictable sleep.
  • Others emphasize OEM and firmware quality: ACPI tables, drivers, and hardware design are often fragile, poorly tested, and tuned only for Windows’ expectations.
  • A minority argue S0ix is fine in principle and policy (what runs in sleep) should be fixed at the OS level, not by resurrecting S3.