How often do people reboot?

quartz1 · 1 Week Ago

(hello, first time poster, long-time computer user)

Brief history

I've had a windows 7 laptop for the past 10 years (Fujitsu Lifebook since 2012) - basically no issues. productive/did (does) the job. I thought it was worth buying a new one because electronics wears out. (and the fan is noisy)

I bought a new Lenovo 11th gen i5 about 6 weeks ago, UEFI prevents Windows 7 being installed - I guess the powers that be don't want people doing that. (unfortunately - we have 4 computers running windows 7 here with no issues)

I installed Windows 10 on it (imo Windows 11 is....horrible, I could probably give reasons), and have been having no end of problems (system stability, user interface, basically anything). I could post a long rant with screenshots, but anyway.

Somewhere to start. Several applications (incl chrome, torrent s/w, ms paint) have been giving me out of memory errors every few minutes for the last couple of days (18 days uptime, errors started about 2 days ago). The question is - how often do people restart their systems? Windows 7 reliably constantly gives me several weeks of uptime (1-2 months without problems), so I'm used to a few weeks between reboots (I've run the memory diagnostic tool - all clear - it's a new laptop)

Let me know if there's any info not in my profile that should be there..

many thx.

quandary · 1 Week Ago

2 PC's running Win 11. The Desktop one (spouse) is used all day long and is typically booted 1 per month after Patch Tuesday. The other one is a laptop (mine) that has more technical activities and is booted more frequently (but not because of issues).

Win 11 is running fine with both, and the Desktop was an upgrade from Win 10.

RickC · 1 Week Ago

I reboot infrequently... usually only when I detect something's wrong - slow responses especially screen refreshes, the icon overlays on my desktop shortcuts turning black, etc. which indicates running out of system resources.

Ghot · 1 Week Ago

Hello @quartz1 and welcome to Ten Forums.

It would help if you provided the Lenovo model number, or filled out your specs, more completely.

It would also help to be more specific about the errors you're getting.
Are the BSODs, Event Viewer errors, etc.

Try3 · 1 Week Ago

quartz1 said:

I installed Windows 10 on it
...
Several applications (incl chrome, torrent s/w, ms paint) have been giving me out of memory errors

What did you do about drivers when you installed Windows 10?
I expect that your model's Lenovo support section provides drivers.
While you're there you might usefully check for any Bios updates.

quartz1 said:

The question is - how often do people restart their systems?

I restart mine every day and have done so for a long time.
I think that it holds off Desktop refresh problems and issues arising out of resuming from sleep a lot of times. Certainly it seems to but I've never conducted a systematic experiment to prove either observation.
I sleep or hibernate mine instead of restarting every time so that
- I keep my place in jobs I am partway through by keeping files, File explorer windows & other applications in their current state.
- My chosen Task scheduler tasks can run - those that I have set the wakeup property for.

Denis

Megahertz · 1 Week Ago

I shut down my computer whenever it is not in use. A computer with a SSD boots and it is ready in less than 30 sec
I don't see any reason to let it on while not in use and I can list many reasons not to let it on.
So I start and shutdown about 3 times a day.

Try3 · 1 Week Ago

Luiz,

I altered my post #5 after you had posted #6.

Denis

Daymin · 1 Week Ago

Well it depends. I have made alterations to my system, with different things running in the background as well. So the fact that if I have any problems, I might have to "figure out" how to turns something off. Like the MusicUI, Searchapp, Photos, input, but again in the future I might use those or could possibly be triggered creating the problem. ( Like Searchapp ). I also had ( still have in some files not found yet ) a virus issue. So after deleting all the affected files many are missing and needs to be replaced.

If I had the computer running for a long period of time, and I have open the same program/app enough times to the point where I start seeing problems. Yes. Otherwise the answer is no. My computer goes to sleep mode, and that is about it.

There are errors that might occur. Like I have this USB-Mic/Headset and caused a blue-screen. That being said I am unable to get sound via my external speakers, even with the head-set plugged in. However this a new problem and I am using an experiment store-app ( Bluetooth speakers ) to get sound from my Android 8 device on my computer ( because scrcpy only do this for Android 11 ).

Or I use photoshop and maybe I have been running it too long. Usually I clear the scratch disks but beyond that?

If

quartz1 said:

(hello, first time poster, long-time computer user)

I've had a windows 7 laptop for the past 10 years (Fujitsu Lifebook since 2012) - basically no issues. productive/did (does) the job. I thought it was worth buying a new one because electronics wears out. (and the fan is noisy)

I bought a new Lenovo 11th gen i5 about 6 weeks ago, UEFI prevents Windows 7 being installed -
many thx.

Then turn off the UEFI setting within the BIOS. By default it is usually set to load from UEFI over legacy BIOS. Your UEFI should be able to load an MBR operating system. If that is not the case, then I suggest looking up the BIOS information ( whatever ). Again there should be options in the menu

Lenovo 11th gen i5 should have these options in the BIOS to switch between modes, or even legacy modes.

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meebers · 1 Week Ago

When I am done using the computer, I shut it off. Been doing that since pre Win7 with no ill effects. I do put it in sleep mode if I am away for a short period. I am a day person, so never runs at night. The desktop machine I am typing this on is a Win7 upgrade, three other machines, running W11 are upgrades also. All booted at least once per day.

quartz1 · 1 Week Ago

ok I think I've filled out the specs..

ok. drivers
I let Win 10 run it's own driver update process, and also use a program called Driver Easy which I've found to be decent enough in the past. BIOS - I think I'm running the latest. I ran the latest BIOS update exe a couple of weeks ago. (whether or not this took functionality away from the BIOS, I'll never know)

#4 specific errors - I've got some screenshots I can put up. since the restart yesterday I haven't had any memory errors. I have no idea what's happening apart from....some sort of windows thing. 8GB RAM and virtual memory set up as it should be.

wrt restarting regularly, I usually have 10-20 tabs open on chrome and 10-20 tabs on firefox and browse the computer regularly throughout the day, so it shouldn't be too much to ask Windows 10 to do what windows 7 has done for several years. I hate to use the phrase "it was never a problem on Windows 7"...

I learnt windows 10 has something called "modern standby", which apparently is a thing where your computer doesn't actually go into standby (S3 mode), it can still talk to the network and restart itself. the modern standby means there are no longer balanced/high performance etc power modes under power settings (I learnt this because annoyingly my USB hdd kept powering down which I'd imagine would reduce it's lifespan nicely)

UEFI question post #8. I've been through the BIOS moderately thoroughly and I don't think this laptop has any legacy BIOS or CSM, pure UEFI. I can certainly post a photograph of the BIOS screen. It's got some stuff about virtualization and hyperthreading but nothing as far as I know about legacy BIOS. if anyone can identify that "oh, virtualization is legacy BIOS", that'd be fantastic. I'm not too hopeful though

Long story but I also trialled an Asus X515E and a newer Fujitsu Lifebook A3511, and they didn't have any legacy BIOS support either. The closest the Fujitsu gets to mentioning CSM is "disable all non windows (linux I guess) installations"

I've actually tried installing W7 from USB (the Lenovo can't boot from external CD/DVD, I had to infra recorder ths ISO and Rufus it to USB), and it hangs very early on in the "starting windows" with the 4 glowy dots moving around. basically all W7 installation does is read from the USB stick with the light grey dos character progress bar and hangs after that