Monitoring more than what Task Manager provides Best answer on the web

Posted in: darrelrussell.com edit
07 Jan 2009
  • I am using a laptop. It has a dual 3 GHz CPU with 1.25 GB RAM. That is more often than not not the limiting factor for performance. Mostly for gaming, a more neglected critical bottle neck is the slow HD transfer speeds and RAM bandwidth. Is there a resource monitor that is sophisticated enough to monitor all of these and other little-known performance limiting factors?
    This could be a separate question:
    While we are at monitors, is there software that will also monitor and CHANGE fan speeds for laptops? Out of the few that even exist, none could be set to leave the fan on at full speed, since I know that I would like the temperature to stay down at all costs during some applications.


  • I think that Windows tools are not enough. I would be interested in a good program that will specifically log RAM and HD bandwidth used. I suspect that it is of no use for the processor to do 20 instructions before it can make a SINGLE access to a RAM! At least now they are putting 667 MHz RAM in desktops. I would like to build a desktop with 800 MHz ECC memory and 15,000 RPM SCSI HD. That should keep a 3.6 GHz supplied with data to process!


  • Use the Performance Monitor included with Windows (under Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Performance).
    For example, under the category PhysicalDisk there are the following items available: % Disk Read Time
    % Disk Time
    % Disk Write Time
    % Idle Time
    Avg. Disk Bytes/Read
    Avg. Disk Bytes/Transfer
    Avg. Disk Bytes/Write
    Avg. Disk Queue Length
    Avg. Disk Read Queue Length
    Avg. Disk sec/Read
    Avg. Disk sec/Transfer
    Avg. Disk sec/Write
    Avg. Disk Write Queue Length
    Current Disk Queue Length
    Disk Bytes/sec
    Disk Read Bytes/sec
    Disk Reads/sec
    Disk Transfers/sec
    Disk Write Bytes/sec
    Disk Writes/sec
    Split IO/Sec


  • Hi,

    Have a look at these freeware applications please and see if you like any of them. I think a combination of them might be able to fulfil your requirements.
    Process Explorer
    http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

    Filemon for Windows
    http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.html

    Please let me know if this helps.

    Thanks.
    endo


  • Just like with the other question, what I ask here (memory and harddrive bandwidth) is not practically answerable. I am aware of both the windows Performance section as well as other programs on the Net. None that I have seen could ever tell me how much of the memory bandwidth is used. I suspect it would be hard to implement that in software.
    I am willing to see your links posted as answers, however, if you want to, please let me change the price to 7.50. Or I should close this question so it doesn't even attract more attention.