How Often Do You Willingly Hard Reset?

[Jon Westfall]

Ed posted a question a few days back asking how often people with WM 5 machines were subjected to unwanted hard resets. While I was one of those who hasn't ever had my WM 5 machine rebel against me with a hard reset, it got me wondering - how often do we willingly hard-reset our devices? Aside from ROM updates or bad apps, the only real reason I see to do this is to rebuild from scratch for maintenance purposes. While I used to re-format my Windows machines quarterly to get a fresh start, this slipped to twice a year and now yearly - and I feel my WM devices are going much the same route (Less voluntary hard resets now than ever). So how often do you hard reset willingly - and why?

[kumarsps]

As of now... seems like people hard-reset for ROM upgrades :)

[Tierran]

I reset my X30 last weekend for the first time since i got it almost 2 years ago. It was just running really slow and it was just time to clean it off.

[mlh1962]

I"ve only done one hard reset so far, my device was running slow. I think maintence is the main reason I use, it helps to clean up all those files left by demo software and freebees I try.

[galt]

During the early months of WM devices, before there were any backup apps, I had to hard reset pretty often as I ran into app problems and OS performance problems. Now with the fantastic SPB Backup I don't really have a need to go through a full hard reset. I'm mostly using the system-only restore option when I run into trouble so I don't worry about losing documents, emails or PIM data if I haven't sync'd it.

[buzzard]

I only keep about 20 or so applications on my 4700 and I keep a copy of all the latest revisions on my PC. For me doing a hard reset (or clean reset if you still use Wm5...I feel sorry for you few) isn't a big deal and sometimes I'll do it just to clean the cooties that collect while trialing (is that a verb ?) new software. I've read where some people take 3-4 days 8O to re-load everything. They must have every song since Elvis's Jailhouse Rock loaded on their PPC.

[ctmagnus]

The last time I hard-reset for maintenance was June, so ten months now. That's a new record for me! 8)

However, I like to do a hard-reset before I restore a (formerly Sprite, now Spb) backup, so I've hard-reset a few times since then for restoration purposes.

[MitchellO]

I voted for 6-12 months, but my first hard reset on my SP5 happened a week ago (after owning it for 4 months) when I updated the ROM. I normally will reset the device after about 6 mths just to get it going properly again :D

[Ed Hansberry]

I only hard reset when absolutely necessary, and only when a ROM upgrade looks like something I want. It takes me at least 3 hours after a hard reset to get moderate functionality back and another 2-3 weeks to finally get everything tweaked out as I like it.

[patato]

I hard reset only if something goes wrong on the HW side and I need to replace the part. My rx3115 is not getting any ROM updates anytime soon :).

[Racer-X]

It has to be a serious problem for me to do a hard reset. I hate having to reinstall everything.

[Jon Westfall]

I'm amazed that we've had almost 600 votes on a sunday! I suspected most people would fall into the Rom Updates category - of course, I remember my days of trialing every piece of software under the sun - hard resets on my XDA & XDA II were plentiful!

[paschott]

My iPaq 2200 - never hard reset. Definitely had some soft-resets, but nothing that ever drove me to a hard reset. Kept hoping for that WM2003SE upgrade that never came about. :(

Current device is a Cingular 8125 - when I first got it I had to hard-reset a couple of times because I would grab the wrong FITALY version (4b1 instead of 4b2) and it would cause the phone functionality to vanish.

Since then, only hard reset one time to do a ROM upgrade to the 2.17 ROM (xda-developers forum). Someone customized a later release with better speed/features even though it's not an official Cingular ROM. They also removed the carrier check. It went on with no issues and I've been running with that for a couple of weeks now.

I may have to hard reset one more time if someone ever gets email vibrate notification working on the HTC Wizards when it's in standby. :?

-Pete

[piperpilot]

When I was using my iPAQ 5455, I used to do hard resets once or twice a year just to clean things out. I could tell when it needed a hard reset because there would be a lengthy delay between the time I put the device in the cradle and the time that ActiveSync would start up. Now that I have the Dell X51v, I have not performed a hard reset other than when ROM update A06 came out. I hope not to have to do one until the next ROM update is issued.

[tabenate]

Willingly? Never

Deliberately (but reluctantly) - probably once every 6 months or so, always because I have a performance problem that I couldn't resolve any other way.

[Jason Lee]

I used to hard reset every 6 months or so just to clean up the device. But now days I only hard reset then i upgrade the rom or there is a problem.

Is it because the devices now are more stable? or maybe i am more carful with what i install? or maybe because of wonderful tools like SK Tools that help me clean up my device without a hard reset?

I guess it is probably a combination of all of the above. I know more about how ppcs work behind the scenes. When ever i uninstall an app i use SK Tools to make a list of every file and reg entery the app made then i installed it. I then uninstall the app and procede to scower the file system and registry to make sure it is all gone. I keep a close eye on free space and temp files as well.

Perhaps this is why may of us don't wipe our devices as often as we used to. :)

[isilver]

I hard reset at least once a week when things star to get slow on the PC. They aren't related to rom updates and the applications I use are all 5 star so I don't think they are application related.

[Brad Adrian]

It takes me at least 3 hours after a hard reset...
I agree. Using a restore utility helps when there's data I've lost, but when I hafta hard reset, I prefer to reinstall everything from scratch. And it still takes awhile to tweak everything.

My JASJAR drove me nuts with hard resets (Ithink mostly due to miniscule memory), but my Axim X51v has worked flawlessly.

[ctmagnus]

The last time I hard-reset for maintenance was June, so ten months now. That's a new record for me! 8)

rrrgh... I had this issue where I'd restore a given Spb backup, then the device would go wonky after four or five days. So I restore again, and four or five days later, the same thing. So I bit the bullet and did a full hard-reset. All is well so far, and much speedier as well. 8)

[Jasmine]

With my first PPC (HP 3970) I never willingly/deliberately did a hard reset. The idea of a hard reset completely scared me! 8O About 8 months after getting the 3970, something happened and it spontaneously hard reset itself. It wasn't the battery going flat, don't know what it was. Fortunately I'd done a back-up only 1-2 days before so I didn't lose anything. It was amazing timing actually because I hadn't done a back-up for months before that. In the (almost) 2 years that the 3970 was my primary PPC, this was the only hard reset.

My primary PPC for the past year and a half has been the hx4705. I did a hard reset on it a couple of months ago for the first time since I bought it. The primary reason for the hard reset was for maintenance as it was getting quite sluggish, particularly when using WiFi or bluetooth. I took this opportunity to apply the ROM update as well, but I would not have done a hard reset solely for the ROM update.

Cheers,
Jasmine