A method for optimizing the use of the non-volatile memory of a motor vehicle computer, used for monitoring a functional member of the vehicle by the computer which is programmed to carry out in the course of a given cycle, during the wake-up thereof, a start-up monitoring stage, and before being put into sleep mode, a shut-down monitoring stage, the computer including a standard counter suitable to be stored in a standard unit and an on-the-fly counter suitable to be stored in an on-the-fly unit, the method including the steps of: incrementing the on-the-fly counter in order to identify a potential malfunction of the monitored functional member; comparing the on-the-fly counter with the standard counter in the course of a next monitoring stage of the computer; and generating information representing a malfunction in the case of detecting a deviation between the counters.