Hi, after searching a bit on the web I'm getting mixed messages about whether there's a difference between a hard and soft reset on a PC (shutting down vs. restarting). I know that shutting down removes power from all the cards and drives, but I'm specifically wondering about clearing memory. When you reboot without shutting down, does that clear the RAM and any other temporary storage fully or do you have to shut down to do so?
Cheers
Sometimes ancillary hardware gets into "wierd" states, and a soft reboot will not necessary reset them, resulting in a malfunctioning system on reboot. When you do a complete power-down, wait for 30-60 seconds, and then start the system up again, these devices will properly power down (discharging onboard capacitors, etc) and come back online properly. For Windows systems, you need to reboot (soft reset) when installing new software or updating old software since it cannot replace things like DLL's when the system is running (or any open files). This is the famous "3-finger salute"... :-)
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