Whenever my internet is slow or I’m having any sort of issue with it, why does restarting my modem fix it 95% of the time?
In: Technology
When this has happened, it’s almost always due to a connection issue between your modem and your provider. Most people have an integrated modem and router, and resetting it reestablishes the connection.
If you’re using cable, there’s a lot of really complicated stuff around channel bonding and how your bandwidth is getting shared with other users that doing a reset can fix.
So it’s rarely a hardware issue as one of the other commenters suggested
Internet technology is just like any other piece of machinery; the internal components (chips/capaciters/batteries) can all start to fail.
Failure might not have a physical appearance; but a “logical” one where data isn’t being transferred correctly causing lost data and bottlenecks in processing
If you want a high chance of never dealing with the issue; consider replacing the modem or home router (if in use)
Imagine the software in your router like a library. People constantly getting books and putting them back, but sometimes a book gets misplaced. The books still there and can be found, but it takes longer because it’s not where it should be. How would you solve this problem? You’d close the library, put everything back where it belongs and reopen with everything in the right place.
That’s basically what resetting your router is doing. Shutting down the software and re-establishing all the connections and protocols as they should be.
A router/modem is just a computer. You know how restarting your computer fixes 99.9% of all problems? Same deal.
It’s not just routers or modems. Restarting is troubleshooting step number 1 for any computer.
Software isn’t perfect. Everything except the simplest of programs is basically guaranteed to have a bug. Catastrophic “crash the whole system” bugs are very rare. So the system can usually recover and keep on going. But sometimes, there’s still a bit of a mess left behind. Like some data stuck in memory.
After only one time, the mess is small enough to be negligible. But as a device remains on for days, weeks, or months, these small messes start piling up and start getting in the way. By restarting, you make the computer wipe everything clean and start again from scratch.
The question is too unclear.
It could be too many devices were connected, they then got Disconnected. Not all connection reconnects automatically, thus less congestion
Maybe restart the router give you a new IP address. So it acts as if you got a new house at a location with no road congestion, and nearer to your destination.
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