Is there any benefit to restarting your PC regularly?

You have to reboot your PC eventually, but how often should you do this?

It's common wisdom among PC users to restart your computer on a regular basis. Some even go so far as insisting that you must do so every day, lest some terrible fate befall you. But is that still the case in 2026, or is this advice held over from an earlier era of computing?

The general consensus is that you do need to restart your PC. How often you do so depends on which operating system you're running, and to some extent, whether you're using a laptop or desktop. Windows machines need to be restarted more often others, and though we won't be focusing on them here, Linux systems typically need fewer restarts in general.

Broadly, restarting a Windows PC at least once a week is beneficial. Because of their limited internal space and accordingly restricted cooling setups, a laptop should be shut down (or at least put to sleep) when you're done using it. Putting a sleeping laptop in a bag is risky since it could get extremely hot if it wakes up in that trapped environment.

There are different reasons to restart your PC, and understanding the basics of what happens when you do will help you determine when your system needs a power cycle.

The primary benefit you'll gain from restarting a PC is a fresh slate for your memory state. As your computer runs, apps, processes and even drivers build up cruft under the hood. Background processes degrade, app caches accumulate and drivers develop errors. Together, this can all lead to strange issues over time.

A full reboot completely dumps your memory, allowing you to resume your work from a blank state. Restarting a PC can also provide security benefits, since some malware can only live temporarily in system memory and is flushed out when the system restarts. Reboots alone are not a sufficient defense against attacks, but they are an important part of one.

On machines with low amounts of RAM, a reboot can even free up some performance headroom. And, while a high-end system with gobs of RAM may run smoothly even after weeks of uptime, it's still beneficial to start from a new session every so often. This lets you keep track of everything you have running and avoid unnecessary usage from memory leaks.