A question about suspend to ram on SuSe 10.1 SP1

I have a question about STR.
There are three commands can trigger STR at console mode, powersave –u, echo mem > /sys/power/state and echo 3 > /proc/acpi/sleep.
When I use the “echo mem > …" and "echo 3 > …” to trigger STR that will cause the system (SUSE 10.1 SP1) enter standby or shutdown after resume but powersave –u is working fine.
So, the question is “what the difference between these commands?”:confused:
Thanks