Lesson 2: Troubleshooting Reliability Issues by Using Built-in Diagnostic Tools

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NOTE

Processor usage

If processor usage is consistently high—say 80 percent or higher for a significant period—you

should consider installing a second processor or replacing the current processor even if the

Windows Experience Index subscore does not identify the processor as a resource bottleneck.

However, before you do so it is worth capturing processor usage data by using Performance

Monitor rather than relying on snapshots obtained by using Task Manager.

The next two graphs display how much RAM is being used, both at the moment and for the

past few minutes. The percentage of memory being used is listed at the bottom of the Task

Manager window. If memory use appears to be consistently high or slows your computer’s

performance noticeably, try reducing the number of programs that are open at one time (or

encourage users you support to close any applications they are not currently using). If the

problem persists, you might need to install more RAM or implement ReadyBoost.

NOTE

Benchmarking with Task Manager

Task Manager is not the primary tool for benchmarking. The Performance Monitor tool in Reliability

and Performance Monitor can capture and display historical data, but Task Manager can display

information only over the last few minutes. Nevertheless, if you are testing the effect of reconfigur-

ing a setting or upgrading hardware, it can be useful to look at resource usage in Task Manager

before and after the change.

Three tables below the graphs list various details about memory and resource usage. In the

Physical Memory (MB) table, Total is the amount of RAM installed on your computer, Cached

refers to the amount of physical memory used recently for system resources, and Free is the

amount of memory that is currently unused and available.

In the Kernel Memory (MB) table, Total is the amount of memory being used by the core part

of Windows, called the kernel; Paged refers to the amount of virtual memory the kernel is

using; Nonpaged is the amount of RAM memory used by the kernel.

The System table has five fields: Handles, Threads, Processes, Up Time, and Page File. A

detailed description of these parameters is beyond the scope of this chapter, but if you want

more information, search for “See details about your computer’s performance using Task Man-

ager” in Windows Help and Support.

If you need more information about how memory and CPU resources are being used, click the

Resource Monitor button. This displays the Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor

Resource View that was described earlier in this lesson. You require elevated privileges to

access Resource Monitor.