TechBook: Sometimes, Rebooting is The Solution

I once had a co-worker who was a real arrogant jerk. He would always spout off about how "rebooting is not a solution...never tell a customer that...rebooting is only an excuse not to solve the problem!"

Jerk. What he failed to realize is shutting down and rebooting is part of a healthy maintenance plan for your computer. Think of it as a good night's sleep for your machine, or a chance to "reset" or "relax".

When you open a program on your computer, it grabs a portion of your system memory (RAM) to run. Sometimes, when you close the program, it doesn't release the chunk of memory it was using. This is called a "memory leak". If you leave your computer running long enough, you're likely to have several processes (from programs you thought you closed) holding onto chunks of memory. Your computer will run slower though you don't seem to have too many programs open. When you shut down or reboot the machine, all programs and processes release the memory, thus resetting everything back to normal.

So remember, give your computer a little "shut-eye". Reboot. Shut down.