Abstract: System and method for maintenance and examination of timers for a computer system having connections in a networking system. Timer values in a connection table each indicate a timeout for a timer for a connection, where each connection has multiple timers, and one of the timer values is written to a global timer array for each connection such that the global timer array can be scanned to determine when timeouts occur for active connections. Sparse restart of a timer includes restarting the timer if data is communicated with a connected computer before the timeout occurs and after a predetermined time interval after timer start, and not restarting the timer if data is communicated before the timeout occurs and within the predetermined interval after timer start.