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Restart Your Devices
Preview:
Your electronic devices will perform better if they are periodically restarted. Here's a list of devices and recommended restart schedule.
Computers surround us. There are computers in our phones, our TV sets, and obviously our computers are computers. Computers need to be restarted frequently. Computers collect temporary files, junk in a cache, sometimes malware, and sometimes minor glitches. Sometimes programs use memory but don't return the memory to the system, leaving the computer with less available memory than is optimal. Here are my recommendations for restarting your devices.
- Routers: Weekly
- Computers: Weekly
- Phones and Tablets: Every other week
- Smart TV sets: Monthly. My Roku TV has a restart option off the settings menu.
- Smart Watches: Monthly
Besides computers, programs should be closed every night then re-opened each morning. You'll have fewer problems if you let each program clean itself up each day. You may have a program you are confident doesn't need that, but it still makes sense to restart those occasionally. Some programs only check for updates when they start. If you leave them on all the time, you won't get crucial security or performance updates.
Database Programs
Many people have database programs. Outlook is a database program handling all your contacts and email. Quickbooks is a database program handling your financial data. These types of programs tend to do things like make backups when closed and check for possible issues and fix them. Quickbooks does this. Others check and fix issues when they startup, but they can't startup if you don't close them.Further Reading
- A you.com chat question I asked when preparing this article.
- A Readers Digest article about when to restart what.
Date: January 2024
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.