Have you turned it off and on again? 

We’ve all been there – something stops working, frustration builds, and IT asks that one question: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” We joke about it, but you would be surprised by how often this works simply because it clears everything out and lets you start from a known, good state. 

Quite often, the problem often isn’t a fault in the application itself but a combination of the clutter in the rest of the system getting in the way. 

You have been working hard, lots of documents open, emails sent and received, messages dealt with, and lots of browser tabs open. Your computer is like a cluttered desk and suddenly an application stops working. 

You call IT for help, they take one look at the mess and have no idea where to start. Whilst there is a chance they could fix the problem without restarting it will take longer and wastes more of your precious time.  

So the first thing we do is restart, magically the mess is cleared, and everything is where it is supposed to be. The problem application may now just work properly as nothing is in its way but even if it still needs troubleshooting we can focus on the application rather than the mess. 

Memory juggling? 

Every time you open an application, email or browser tab the computer allocates memory to that task. Over time there can be hundreds of tasks running at the same time and whilst tasks release memory when they are finished you end up with parts of free memory in amongst allocated memory.  

When you start another task it may get its memory allocated from different places depending on where the free memory is.  

Once you reach a point where you there is no available free memory your computer will put tasks that have not been active for a whilst to sleep. This means it will store the memory allocated to that task on disk instead thus releasing the memory for something else to use.  

When you need to wake that task free memory is allocated (which may need a different task to be put to sleep) and its state is read back in from disk.  

As this continues you can see faults develop in applications which work fine when running in a normal state but can go wrong when memory is fragmented across locations or parts of an application have been put to sleep whilst others are still active.  

When you restart the computer all the memory is freed and tasks can be allocated the resources they need as straight away.  

Updates 

We all hate them and they always seem to want to install at the worst times. However updates are a critical part of looking after and maintaining your computer. 

Over time the software developers fix bugs and when these are fixed they release an update which then needs to be applied to your computer.  

If the update relates to your operating system or to an application that is never closed the updates cannot run and have to wait for a restart. 

When the system is restarted it is free to install the updates so not only do you start fresh with a clean desk but problems have also been fixed. Of course this sometimes introduces new problems but that’s a blog for another day. 

How often should you restart? 

Ideally you should shutdown your system at the end of the day, computers are much quicker now than they used to be and you no longer need to switch it on in the morning then go make a coffee whilst it boots.  

You don’t have to shut it down, you can let it go to sleep as this is when it comes back online everything should be as you left it. However, putting it to sleep does not tidy everything up and give you a fresh start so eventually you are bound to run into problems. 

Keeping your systems healthy doesn’t need to be complicated. A few simple habits and the right IT partner can make all the difference. 

IT that just works. So you can, too.