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Hi Ron,
Does power cycling it mean, completely shuttin down and pulling the plug?
I was told to do that sometimes and pull the power cord out of the CPU and hold in the power button. After about a second or 2 I hear a little click inside. They told me that was to dump everything that coud be left in there.
Wayne.

Hi Wayne, this is getting far afield, but quickly: I think Eddie was talking about power cycling more in the context of peripherals. I have the M Audio 2496 (internal card). "Recycling" it seems never to have been an issue, but I think a simple reboot accomplishes a power recycle for the busses (including USB). If I ever need to replace the card I'd look at USB products (hence my interest here). When I have ISP issues that a reboot doesn't resolve, I unplug (the power) first the modem then the router for 10 secs, then reverse process. That's a full power cycle to me.

That procedure you describe for the entire computer is what I do before opening it up. Holding in the power button while unplugged is to clear static charges from the circuitry. That delayed click you hear, I'm guessing is the spring delay that keeps us from accidentally hitting the button and instantly shutting down. I think I read you want to continue depressing for a few more secs after the click.

Incidentally, Matt and others make excellent observations about rebooting Win7 (x64 sp1 in my case) either routinely or when there's a problem. It's so stable, there's a tendency to let it go and go. (Which I do myself, sad to say.) I think MS intended us to reboot more often. I do keep track of cpu and core usage with a desktop widget.

Anyway, back to regularly scheduled kibbitzing.... -Ron