For both experienced technicians and home computer administrators, the Task Manager (called "Task Manager" in Italian) has always been the first and most immediate Windows tool to use to diagnose computer performance problems. From the task manager you can find multiple information on how programs use system resources, on which processes are active and on the capabilities of the PC.
While in Windows 7 the Task Manager has more limited information, one of the biggest improvements of Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 is in the Task Manager tool that now allows you to look at detailed graphs and tables to control exactly the use of computer resources by Windows itself and applications .
Let's see how to read the information of the second tab of the task manager of Windows 10 and Windows 8.1, that of Performance .
This guide may also apply to Windows 7, although the Performance tab, which provides almost the same information, has much uglier graphics and less convenient to control.
To begin with, to open the Task Manager's Performance tab, press the CTRL-Shift-Esc keys together.
If it has never been done, you need to press, from the window that opens, More details to expand the full view.
Then click the performance tab to view the real-time usage graphs of system resources.
From this window you can check the four main resources of a computer: CPU, memory, disk and Network (Ethernet and Wifi) .
1) Check CPU usage.
The CPU section tells us how system and programs are using available processor resources.
The graph shows the percentage of usage in the past 60 seconds.
In the upper right corner you can read the exact name of the processor model, while at the bottom there is detailed information on the current CPU usage, speed, cache values, cores and top speed.
You can also monitor all logical processors separately in the Task Manager and see a graph for each physical processor core.
To do this, right click on the graph and select Change Graph to> Logic Processors .
Always pressing the right mouse button on the graph you can activate the option Show kernel times, that is how the CPU cycles are used by the kernel, which is the brain of the internal functions of the system.
Kernel time is represented by the darker area of the graph.
2) Check the memory usage
If monitoring CPU usage is important, it is fundamental to check the RAM memory, which is primarily responsible for slowing down a PC.
The Memory section shows two graphs, one at the top to see the percentage of memory used in the last 60 seconds, the bottom one instead shows how the memory is allocated.
Moving the mouse over one of the graphs you will see some details on what they mean.
Below, however, you can read some data on the memory and, to be precise:
- Memory in use : memory currently used by programs, drivers or Windows itself.
- Constrained : memory whose content must be written to the disk before it can be used for other purposes.
- Cache : memory that contains cached data and code that is not currently in use.
- Available : memory that is not currently in use.
- Paging pool : use of virtual memory (paging file).
You can also read information on the occupied and free memory slots, on the speed of the RAM (if using different memory modules, the overall speed is limited to the module with the lowest speed), the memory reserved for the hardware.
3) Disk usage
The disk, if it is a mechanical hard disk, is the slowest part of the computer and, therefore, it is important to check its use carefully.
The Task Manager has a separate section of graphs for each internal and external disk so you can monitor them separately.
The first disk listed is always the one where the Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 operating system is installed.
This section allows you to see how the disk is used in the last 60 seconds and, at the bottom, how quickly the data is transferred.
Below the graphs you will find further information, including the percentage of time the disk was active, the average speed with which it responds to requests, the average read and write speed and capacity.
4) Control of network use
In the performance tab there are separate sections for each network card, be it Ethernet or wifi.
For each of them it is possible to see graphs on the use of the network the total utilization in the last minute, that is the data sent and received by the computer.
Below you can read information with real-time update on the sending and receiving speed and the IP address assigned to the computer.
For even more detailed technical information, right-click on the graph and then click on View network details .
Finally, it is possible to have a compact view of this window by right clicking on one of the sections of the column on the left and choosing the summary view .
To save the data displayed while checking system resources, you can take a screenshot or right-click on one of the graphs and then press Copy .
Then open a writing program or an Excel spreadsheet and paste the data and find it well formatted and ordered in a document.
Wanting even more information on how the computer is working, you can finally click on the Resource Monitor button.
Final note for the small SysGauge computer real-time status indicator program, which offers an alternative view of Windows resource monitoring.
