It turns out it helps on several levels.
If there’s one piece of advice that comes up on every tech forum and support page whenever someone raises an issue, it’s probably “Restart your device.” Even though gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally don’t look like laptops, under that portable hood they run full PC operating systems, whether it’s SteamOS or Valve’s Windows. So, at their core, they still operate on the same principles as your classic PC. This means that the old advice “turn it off and on again” is still relevant here and with an impressive success rate.
On the surface, restarting your gaming handheld seems like a basic tip, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. This simple restart can fix a surprising number of issues, from a constantly crashing game to sudden frame drops and lags. It can even fix persistent audio issues. So there are many benefits to restarting your gaming handheld regularly; It’s even one of the first troubleshooting steps on Valve’s Steam Deck support page. This won’t fix everything, but it will at least clear everything that’s been building up in your background and give the system a clean slate to work with.
Benefits of Restarting Your Gaming Handheld Regularly
The first benefit of making regular reboots a habit is that it helps keep your device’s memory clear. The more you use your console, the more your RAM (random access memory) fills up, and over time, some games and applications may fail to free up memory on your system or lose memory even after you close them. These memory leaks and hogs eventually slow down your gaming handheld and, worse, it’s not something you can prevent. But by simply restarting your handheld regularly, you can prevent these effects from building up over time.
Another little-known benefit of restarting your gaming handheld is that it allows your system to apply updates efficiently. A good old reboot allows your device to properly integrate all the important stuff contained in an update (like bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements) into your system. So, by restarting your gaming handheld regularly, you ensure that your device is always up to date. Regular restarts can also help you resolve software issues before they cause your gaming handheld to freeze or crash.
Yes, hibernate and power off are also useful
Turning off your handheld provides the same benefits as restarting it, simply because it’s basically the same thing. Meanwhile, hibernating your gaming handheld doesn’t provide the benefits of restarting or powering off; instead, it lets you save your exact session to storage when you’re not using the device, then resume where you left off, all with little to no battery drain. It is widely recommended that you turn off or hibernate your gaming handheld when not in use, especially when carrying it in a poorly ventilated carrying case or bag where it may overheat.
In case you’re wondering, restarting your gaming handheld regularly doesn’t mean you have to do it every few hours. There is no fixed or universally accepted number for how often you should restart your gaming handheld, but a good starting point is once every few days or at least once a week.
