# Should a laptop be rebooted on a regular basis? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 14, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746 "2012-03-14T14:46:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/21 "2012-03-15T16:11:26Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Advice, please. Interested in maximizing the life of my laptop. > > I’m a freelancer and I also go to school where I use my laptop in class. So there are days when I get to class, use laptop for 1.5 hrs, go to client’s office and use laptop for 3 hours, then go home and use laptop during the evening. (It’s my only computer. Win 7, 8g RAM) > > Should I be putting it into standby/hibernate mode (which?) when I put it in my bag to go to my next destination? > > Should I turn it off overnight or leave it in sleep/hibernate? (What is the difference between these two modes?) > I’m old enough to remember when you had to “park” a hard drive, so I have this learned aversion to carrying the computer around in a bag when it’s technically on. I can unlearn that. Laptops because they do not have the airflow nor the more heavily built components of desktops, and should be shut down when not in use IMHO. Laptops by the simple fact that they do get moved around are orders of magnitude more likely to suffer failures just because they are subjected so much more dirt, impact, vibration, extremes of temperature, than desktop machines. Not to mention the greater possibilities for theft. You are probably more likely to have a failure due to these factors than leaving it on. As much as I hate to say this, you are the poster child for disaster. Depending what kind of freelancer you are, you have a variety of needs for backups both of data as well as spare hardware. For example, if your hard drive in your machine failed right now, how much work in progress would you lose? Do you have some kind of ongoing backup regimen? What kind of losses would you experience if your laptop died right now with or without data loss? Mobile computer dependent professionals need to look at computers in terms of acceptable losses not in preservation of investment. Depending on your power needs you might be better off with dropbox syncs between two machines to minimize unplanned downtime in the event of loss or failure. Things like a broken laptop screen are not going to be something a typical computer shop has parts on hand for for example. Sorry if I started lecturing, I have had several customers lose or break laptops and then go on lamenting the unfairness of the universe when they could not work for several days. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/22 "2012-03-15T16:13:23Z")
> [@mbetter](#): > > This is patently false, the part about Firefox at least. Why do you say that? Firefox on my old work laptop was a serious performance problem if left on for extended periods of time. I went through a process of elimination, instead of leaving all programs running I would end 1 and leave the rest running. When Firefox was not left on overnight performance was fine the next day, all other programs made no difference. I repeated it many times, enough I was satisfied Firefox was the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Christopher\_Robin\_Davies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@Christopher\_Robin\_Davies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Christopher_Robin_Davies)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/23 "2012-03-15T16:31:43Z")
I wanted to pop back into the thread to thank everybody who answered. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/24 "2012-03-15T17:16:52Z")
> [@mbetter](#): > > This is patently false, the part about Firefox at least. You appear not to know what you’re talking about. Memory leaks are a real problem in software in general, and with Firefox in particular. It’s arguably been the single biggest technical issue they’ve had to deal with in the last few years. It’s been often cited as the reason people have been moving away from Firefox to Chrome. Here, for example, is a [dev team email about them](http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_thread/thread/3e0b8c1be056a665?pli=1) from John Stenback, one of the lead Mozilla developers who’s been working on the project since it was Netscape. The email was sent less than a year ago. > [@John Stenback](#): > > It’s become increasingly clear over the last several months that we have a pretty pressing need to deal with increases in memory usage in > Firefox. Just google for “Firefox memory leak” and start reading. ---
**Author:** ![Christopher\_Robin\_Davies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@Christopher\_Robin\_Davies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Christopher_Robin_Davies)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/25 "2012-03-15T17:26:17Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > You appear not to know what you’re talking about. Memory leaks are a real problem in software in general, and with Firefox in particular. It’s arguably been the single biggest technical issue they’ve had to deal with in the last few years. It’s been often cited as the reason people have been moving away from Firefox to Chrome. > > Here, for example, is a [dev team email about them](http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_thread/thread/3e0b8c1be056a665?pli=1) from John Stenback, one of the lead Mozilla developers who’s been working on the project since it was Netscape. The email was sent less than a year ago. > > Just google for “Firefox memory leak” and start reading. I just read the wikipedia article on memory leaks and it was very interesting. Here is the link. > **[Memory leak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak)** > > In computer science, a memory leak is a type of resource leak that occurs when a computer program incorrectly manages memory allocations in a way that memory which is no longer needed is not released. A memory leak may also happen when an object is stored in memory but cannot be accessed by the running code (i.e. unreachable memory). A memory leak has symptoms similar to a number of other problems and generally can only be diagnosed by a programmer with access to the program's source code. > A rel... ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/26 "2012-03-15T17:33:49Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Laptops because they do not have the airflow nor the more heavily built components of desktops, and should be shut down when not in use IMHO. That’s absurd. When a laptop is asleep, there is no significant power dissipation (my laptop can stay asleep for over a week, and still have some battery power left), and the hard drive is parked and off. My recommendation: just close the lid, wait for the drive activity light to go off, and pack your laptop. I almost never turn my laptop off - it is either working or asleep. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/27 "2012-03-15T18:09:31Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Laptops because they do not have the airflow nor the more heavily built components of desktops, and should be shut down when not in use IMHO. etc… [Replied to on my thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=645288) ---
**Author:** ![mbetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@mbetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbetter)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/28 "2012-03-15T18:48:34Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > You appear not to know what you’re talking about. Memory leaks are a real problem in software in general, and with Firefox in particular. It’s arguably been the single biggest technical issue they’ve had to deal with in the last few years. It’s been often cited as the reason people have been moving away from Firefox to Chrome. > > Here, for example, is a [dev team email about them](http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_thread/thread/3e0b8c1be056a665?pli=1) from John Stenback, one of the lead Mozilla developers who’s been working on the project since it was Netscape. The email was sent less than a year ago. > > Just google for “Firefox memory leak” and start reading. I, however, live in 2012 where the vast majority of memory problems have been addressed. It’s just not a valid criticism any more. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/29 "2012-03-15T19:47:06Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > You appear not to know what you’re talking about. Memory leaks are a real problem in software in general, and with Firefox in particular. It’s arguably been the single biggest technical issue they’ve had to deal with in the last few years. It’s been often cited as the reason people have been moving away from Firefox to Chrome. > > Here, for example, is a [dev team email about them](http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_thread/thread/3e0b8c1be056a665?pli=1) from John Stenback, one of the lead Mozilla developers who’s been working on the project since it was Netscape. The email was sent less than a year ago. > > Just google for “Firefox memory leak” and start reading. Even if that is still true, it doesn’t appear to permanently lock up memory; in other words, the memory is freed when you close Firefox (as with my experience with the UPS software I mentioned). That leads to the question of why people leave it running all the time; Firefox allows you to easily restore your previous session so you can just close it when you are done and then click on “restore previous session” when you start it up again, at least on the default start page. For comparison, when I stop using my computer, even when just in sleep mode, I have all apps closed (of course, that still leaves many processes like AV running, but with Windows 7 I haven’t ever had any performance problems related to this, though my previous computer with XP started acting funny after a few weeks without a reboot). ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/30 "2012-03-15T20:35:18Z")
> [@mbetter](#): > > I, however, live in 2012 where the vast majority of memory problems have been addressed. It’s just not a valid criticism any more. That may be the case. I haven’t used Firefox for a while (because it used to leak all over the damned place and I switched to Chrome), so I’ll take your word for it. “This used to be true, but new versions of Firefox no longer suffer from major memory leaks” would have been a lot clearer and more helpful than “that is patently false”. Not everyone is using the newest version. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/31 "2012-03-16T00:08:56Z")
> [@mbetter](#): > > I, however, live in 2012 where the vast majority of memory problems have been addressed. It’s just not a valid criticism any more. My “process of elimination” experiment was 2 months ago - also in 2012 (on a fairly recent version of Firefox but not THE most recent version). You know, most reasonable people can relate to statements like “many of those problems have been fixed in the most recent version” - but when you make statements like “patently false”, it tells us that either you are emotionally biased by the subject or simply unaware of the actual facts. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746/32 "2012-03-16T00:09:11Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > That may be the case. I haven’t used Firefox for a while (because it used to leak all over the damned place and I switched to Chrome), so I’ll take your word for it. Don’t - I’m on Firefox 10 (which I see as of two days ago is no longer current), and I have seen no particular improvement in the gradual creep of its memory footprint. This may not technically be leakage - the browser might be tracking the memory just fine, but it’s not freeing it to the OS. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-laptop-be-rebooted-on-a-regular-basis/615746.md?page=1)