Performance Monitoring

Computer running slow? Wondering what goes on as you use your computer? Maybe, you want to save money on your next upgrade and only want to buy what you need to buy. Well, you've come to the right place. Here we'll learn a little bit about monitoring the performance and identifying bottlenecks.

The 4 general areas to watch are processor usage, memory usage, disk I/O, and network I/O (Input/Output). Within each of these general areas there are multiple graphs to monitor to see what is happening on the computer and in certain instances, the network.

Where can I find these graphs? If you are using Windows 95 or 98 they can be found in the System Monitor. The System Monitor can be found by clicking on "Start", then "Programs", then "Accessories", now click on "System Tools", finally "System Monitor." The System Monitor is very similar from Windows 95 to Windows 98, so I will only cover it once using screen shots from Windows 98. Under Windows NT the graphs can be found by clicking on "Start", then "Programs", then "Administrative Tools (Common)", finally on "Performance Monitor." On Windows 2000 open the "Control Panel", then double-click on "Administrative Tools", finally double-click on "Performance." The monitoring tools on Windows NT and Windows 2000 are very similar, but there are enough changes to justify covering them separately.

Before we get too deeply into covering the monitoring agents, lets clarify a few points and define some terms. Earlier I stated that there were 4 general areas to monitor (processor, memory, disk I/O, and network I/O), but within each of these areas are many different items we need to understand. We'll cover those here, before we move on.

Processor

Processor Usage - % of time spent by processor processing threads

Process - A process is essentially a program under control of the operating system that is given its own room in memory and resources to work with. A process has its own variables and can request access to hardware from the operating system. Most applications run with one or two processes.

Thread - For a process to get any work done, it must divide the work into threads for the operating system to execute. A thread is a piece of executable code that can be run on a processor.

Memory

Allocated Memory - Room in memory given to a process for it work with.

Locked Memory - This is a portion of the allocated memory that must stay in RAM and can not be paged out.

Unused Physical Memory - Portion of RAM that is currently unallocated.

Page Faults - Number of page faults being issued by the Virtual Memory Manager (VMM). To learn more about page faults, go here.

Swap File Size - Current size of swap file. To learn more about what a swap file is, go here.

Disk I/O

Reads/Writes per sec - Number of reads/writes from/to the hard disk

Bytes read/written per sec - Number of bytes read/written from/to the hard disk

Network I/O

Reads/Writes per sec - Number of reads/writes from/to the network.

Bytes read/written per sec - Number of bytes read/written from/to the network.

Below are screen shots from the System Monitor in Windows 98.