I work at a major tech company and most times I go to IT, they tell us to restart our computer. Why is this a necessary process to maintain a normal operating experience?
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Momentary power dropouts can be an issue if your grid is not great and if your equipment is not using a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) or is not otherwise protected. A dropout can be like turning your computer off and suddenly changing your mind and turning it back on. When turning off, all the RAM (the memory bits, i.e. the 1’s and 0’s) will clear, but this does not happen instantly, so if the power comes back quickly enough, the computer will continue to run but may have random bits cleared. At this point, the computer is in an indeterminate state, who knows if/when it will stop working, and the only fix is to restart it. At the company where I worked, if a momentary power dropout happened, the procedure was to stop all testing and power cycle all the computer equipment. (And not a mere reboot, but shut down, count to 10–to give everything a chance to clear–and only then start back up.)
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