Its Bad right?

[UnitQ]

I wanted to know if it is true that pressing the reset botton on your computer was bad for it.

I think it is bad but my friend seas that it wount do anything

Can someone tell me if this is true so i could prove to my friend that its bad to keep pressing the reset botton on your computer.

 

[CruddyLeper]

You are BOTH right.

1) Computer hardware (chips, drives etc) have a special signal line into them called the Reset line. When you press the reset button, all the hardware gets interrupted and reset. The computer starts up. It's DESIGNED to work like that. The hardware is unaffected.

2) The SOFTWARE (Windows for most people, Linux or Mac or whatever for some) hates this. It's continually loading and saving files, and if the computer is reset while a file is saving, then the software gets messed up. Sometimes the software is smart enough to work this out - but most of the time it isn't, because it's not expecting to be reset without a warning.

SO; Hardware is designed to be reset (it resets so it all starts up in a fresh condition); software ISN"T.

The computer is fine PHYSICALLY, but Windows often won't start up.

So, from a PRACTICAL point of view, you are right; from a technical or literal point of view, your friend is right.

Real life is rarely black and white / good or bad. It all depends on which angle you are looking from.

The reset button is there for when the computer is locked up (frozen). Although, to be honest, I generally recommend using the power button (holding it down for a few seconds) to turn the machine off completely.

It gets reset when it turns on anyway.

 

[Zelig]

AFAIK, large amounts of resets aren't particular good for hard drives, if they're writing anything when the reset button is hit.

 

[Speedo]

The reset button need only be used when the comp is completely unresponsive. You shouldn't need it that often, certainly not often enough to case any kind of real problems.

*Usually* when the comp is hung, nothing is really being read or written, for the same reason that you're having to use the reset button in the first place. I can't ever recall having windows fail to boot because of using the reset button.

As CL said on any modern comp you can hold down the power button for 4-5 seconds to force the box to power down, which is essentially the same as the reset. In fact you'll find that many new OEM boxes don't have a reset button.

 

[Turner]

NTFS goes a long way to stopping the problem with files when the computer is reset.

My old HP has FAT32 with XPPro over Win98SE. Whenever it would crash, it always needed to recover the open files.

My old HP at work had NTFS, and a short in the power connector on the mobo. There were times when it would constantly crash, and then I'd go days without that happening. It never had to recover the files.

I'm sure there's more to it than that, but they were both updated XPProSP1 machines, and aside from the obvious machine differences, the only difference was one was FAT32, the other NTFS. :Shrug: YMMV

 

[marshal zhukov]

AFAIK, large amounts of resets aren't particular good for hard drives, if they're writing anything when the reset button is hit.

Dude you are TOTALLY right.
I lost a 20 GB Maxtor Diamond Plus HD two years ago . The Computer technician said that I had pressed reset too many times.

And I did. The PC had fronzen up so I pressed reset. According to him the HD "needle" touched the HD plate because of the reset, ruining some vital clusters that tell where everything else is.

I had to buy a new one... oh I had backed up everthing in CDRs.