It is important for a technician to understand how a computer is performing and be able to analyze why a computer might be running slow. In order to do that, a technician must know what type of applications are being run on the computer and what are the effect of these applications on the computer resources. A technician must also be able to monitor the computer's resource usage whenever problems occur, change the configuration as needed, and observe the results of the configuration change.

Three utilities are commonly used to monitor system performance: Task Manager, Performance tool's System Monitor, and Performance tool's Performance Logs and Alerts . Task Manager is used to monitor your system's current performance. System Monitor is used to monitor real-time data about specific computer components. Performance Logs and Alerts allows you to create logs about the computer's performance and create alerts that notify you when a specific instance being monitored reaches a threshold that you define. It includes a summary graph of processor and memory usage.

Task Manager Manager has been discussed in previous section. How to use it to monitor your computer's performance is as follows: Access Task Manager and click on the Performance tab. Task Manager immediately starts gathering CPU and memory usage statistics and displays them in graph form in the window. Figure XP -8 shows the Task Manager graphs.

The first window on the left, CPU Usage, shows the CPU usage percentage or what percentage of time the processor is working. Actually, it is a percentage of time the processor is running a thread. A thread is a type of Windows object that runs application instructions. The first window on the right, CPU Usage History, is a graph of how busy the microprocessor has been over a period of time.

The second window on the left (PF Usage) shows the amount of virtual memory (the paging file) being used. The amount shown is in megabytes as evidenced by the M after the number. If the display shows that the paging file is near the maximum, you can adjust the page file size. The following steps allow you to set the paging file size:

1. Click all the Start button and select Control Panel.

2. If in category view, select Performance and Maintenance followed by the System control panel icon. If in classic control panel view, double-click on the System control panel icon.

3. Click on the Advanced tab, locate the Performance section, and click on the Settings button.

4. Click on the Advanced tab, locate the Virtual Memory section, and click on the Change button. The second window on the right, Page File Usage History, is a graph of the virtual memory used over time. Memory is a frequent bottleneck for computer performance issues. Task Manager can also be used to see the total amount of RAM installed and how much RAM is available. Look in the Physical Memory information section in the Task Manager window to see this.

If you find that memory is a problem, there are several things you can do including increasing the amount of RAM installed in the system, create multiple paging files when multiple hard drives are installed in the system, manually set the paging file size, run applications that require a lot of memory with all other applications closed, close any unnecessary windows, avoid having too many applications open, upgrade the hard drive or add another hard drive, and run the disk defragmenter program provided with XP.

Task Manager also has the Networking tab that is useful to technicians. The Networking tab shows a graph of network performance. The information shown can also be changed by selecting the. View menu option, clicking on the Select Columns option, clicking in the available check boxes, and clicking on the OK button. Figure XP-9 shows this window.

Sometimes a computer can start slowing down. The most common cause of slowdowns are that the computer's resources are insufficient or an application is monopolizing a particular resource such as memory. Other causes of slowdowns include a resource that is not functioning properly or is outdated such as a hard drive, the resource is not configured for maximum performance and needs to be adjusted, or resources such as hard drive space and memory are not sharing workloads properly. They need to be adjusted.

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A baseline report is needed before the slowdown occurs. A baseline is a snapshot of your computer's performance during normal operations (before it has problems). Task Manager can be used to get an idea of what normal performance is, but the System Monitor and Performance Logs and Alerts tools are better suited to captu~ing and analyzing specific computer resource data.

To access the Performance tool (which contains System Monitor and Performance Logs and Alerts), perform the following steps:

1. Click on the Start button and access Control Panel.

2. If in category view, click on Performance and Maintenance, click on the Administrative Tools control panel icon, and double-click on the Performance icon. If in classic control panel view, double-click on the Administrative Tools control panElI icon, and double-click on the Performance icon.

The Performance window opens and System Monitor and Performance Logs and Alerts list in the left pane. Click on the System Monitor option and the tool starts collecting and displaying real-time data about the local computer or, if configured, from remote computers. A previously captured log file can also be loaded. Data can be displayed in graph, histogram, and report views. Figure XP -10 shows the System Monitor default screen (graph view).

You may notice that in Fig. XP -10 at the bottom of the window is the legend for interpreting the graph. Also, on the screen, you will see different colours used for each of the performance measures and also the counter that is being used. A counter is a specific measurement for an object. Common objects include cache, memory, paging file, physical disk, processor, system, and thread.

Running System Monitor also affects your computer's performance especially when you are using the graph view and are sampling large number of data. The following helps when running System Monitor or Performance Logs and Alerts:

• Turn off any screen saver.

• Use report view instead of graph view to save on resources.

• Keeps the number of counters being monitored to a minimum.

• Sample at longer intervals such as 10 to 15 minutes rather than just a few seconds or minutes apart,