I work on a laptop and desktop simultaneously, due to the excessive/obsessive amount of cross-reference, research and searching (composing articles, manuals, writing letters, constructing graphics, corresponding etc). If I get bogged down for too long on one thing, I like to let the other machine "go to sleep". It was my understanding that this could be a gradated process (hard disk, monitor, hibernation, power supply closes down etc). I guess that I could include a scanner and laserjet printer in that subsidence process.
Unfortunately it may be the case that the file that I'm working on (or rather ONE or TWO or THREE of the files or programs that I'm working on might reside on the machine not actually in use - across the network), so any such shutdown, gradated or not becomes impractical. About the only power-saving that I achieve is the desktop or laptop monitor shuts down after the set period and when I catch a break, I can put both of them into apparent hibernation (via SUSPEND on the laptop and the SLEEP key on the MS Office keyboard). At a much later stage the desktop' sleep becomes hibernation (when the power supply goes bye-bye).
With a better understanding of the savings achieved (harddisk life, power, screen phosphor etc) and how best to configure, I might just be able to set it up in a likelier configuration.