▷ Why restarting solves problems that appear on our computer

Think for a moment about something really mysterious and certainly magical, why restarting solves problems of our team, does this really have any scientifically proven foundation? Surely you and practically all of us, whenever we find a problem in our system, error notification, or even when we install a new program, the first thing we do is restart our computer, of our own free will or by force.

But why do we do this? Are we really solving the errors or the malfunction of our PC? We will try to explain or shed more light on what is happening when we reboot our computer and if the problems are really fixed.

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And it is that even the Windows system itself has an option activated by default that makes our computer restart after a serious error, so, surely this must have some scientific basis after all, right?

Restarting fixes problems, and you know it!

Well, as you can imagine, restarting to fix errors does have a very simple reason and explanation. When we have been working with the equipment for hours, surely we will have carried out a lot of actions on it. We will have opened programs to work, installed others, an Internet browser and played for a while subjecting our team to maximum stress.

Because, the system itself has up to more than 50 processes and its own services in operation, carrying out its own efforts and providing a smooth operation of the system and its physical resources for the user.

All this takes its toll on the state of the system since little by little, it leaves behind remnants of codes and instructions stored in the computer's RAM and on the hard drive itself. In addition, if we have opened a program and have closed it, part of the information is stored in RAM memory, since the system interprets that sooner or later we are going to use it again, and automatically decides to have it pending so that we can access it. easier.

The result is that RAM is increasingly fragmented, and therefore access to it is becoming slower. It is enough to do the test to see the used RAM memory right when starting the computer and after a time of use. Perhaps even internal errors have occurred that we have not even noticed.

What happens when we reboot

When we reboot, what we are doing is emptying absolutely all the content of the RAM memory, to reload the content from scratch with the information strictly necessary for the loading of the system and initial services.

In this way we will be returning to a new state of the system, in which the team has only generated the instructions necessary to start the system, without the influence of programs that we have opened, or configurations that we have been making.

But not only does this happen in RAM memory, other devices such as hard drives, transactions from expansion cards installed in PCI slots and input and output devices, restart their operation. In this way all the instructions that had been sent to the north and south bridge of the motherboard have been reset.

The result will be more smooth running equipment, at least for a few more hours.

On which devices restart troubleshoot

Well, absolutely on all smart or programmable devices, restarting can solve problems caused by the system or control firmware. Even in humans this works, surely when we wake up the next day we see the day with another perspective than when we went to bed the day before.

We can restart a Smartphone and make it go more smoothly, a router and anything electronic. If we do not have a RESET button, the only thing we would have to do is disconnect them from the power and all solved. Absolutely everything that has an operating system has this possibility.

It is much more worth doing a reboot than spending time looking for services and processes in the task manager until you find the one that is giving us problems.

But rebooting is not always the solution

If we have restarted our equipment, and have obtained again the error that caused the reason for the restart, we may consider that we have a more serious problem. This will surely play every time we restart, so in this case we must try by all means to fix it.

How to see the system event viewer in Windows 10

Windows, and practically all systems and devices, have a log or file that collects the events produced in the operation of the system. Thanks to this we will be able to have a more exact idea of ​​how our system is doing and how to identify an error produced.

We go to the Windows start menu and write "event log " or also " event viewer ". Click on the option whose name matches what you are looking for.

We will open a tool in which we will have a series of elements in a side panel. To view the events related to the system, we must open the " Windows Logs " section.

Here we will find a series of documents or lists in which we can identify errors and warnings of different components. If we go for example to the system, all the events produced in it will be monitored. We see that we have errors and warnings that we have not even been informed about.

If we double-click on our error, we can have more information about it, although the help of the Internet will surely be necessary to find out more about it.

For example, for this error, we have searched for information and it appears to be an inherited and fairly common system error. In addition, it has practically no impact on proper operation.

The displayed code corresponds to a registry value, which will be accessible through the registry editor to be able to change the permissions and see if the error no longer occurs.

It is good to be aware of errors, although we should not go crazy to fix them if Windows has not expressly notified us.

Because it must be restarted after a program update or installation

Another of the things that we will ask ourselves the most, is possibly the fact of having to restart every time we receive a nice Windows update, or after installing third-party programs. This also has a well-grounded and perfectly understandable explanation.

An operating system requires the loading of files into memory in order to function. In the case of Windows, files with a.dll extension are used, which provide the parameters and information necessary for the operation of the system and what is in it. When we install an update or program, certain dll that are loaded in memory must be modified, precisely to enter the information of the new program.

It is at this point that, due to the continuous use of these files, the system cannot rewrite this information, but neither can it download the files and reload them. And that is when the notification of appears, restart the system to apply the changes.

When we do this, the dll are downloaded and certain related services are stopped, in this way it is already possible to apply the changes to these files so that, once the system has restarted, the new information loaded on them is functional.

This is the reason for Windows restarts. Other operating systems have a different operation and it is not necessary to carry out this procedure, such as Linux distributions that have taken a step further and it is even possible to update the system's own kernel without the need for a reboot.

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We hope that with these lines we have been able to clarify some fairly recurring questions about our teams. What do you think of the need about this reboot issue?