Cpu Usage Monitoring

[AzureMusique 0]

While looking for a batch file renamer,I came across a program that monitors CPU usage, CPUMon. What are the pros and cons of monitoring CPU usage and what are the benefits?But first, is CPU usage monitoring legal? I hope it's not a hacking device or anything thing. Can't help but ask. It's just one thing I've never heard about. I'm just trying to raise the efficiency of my 4-month-old laptop. Thank you very much.

[rob86 2]

A 'CPU usage monitor' is really simple thing that doesn't do a whole lot. It's certainly not illegal. When your computer is doing something, like loading a game, editing an image or playing audio the CPU is in use (Central processing unit). Perhaps you have seen a light on your computer flicker when something is loading. The amount of it's processing power that's being used is mostly displayed as a percentage which makes it easy to graph the usage as CpuMon does.If you've ever opened up the Windows Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DELETE) you'll see that there are already tabs that do the same thing as CPUMon and more. It shows you how much CPU each program is using not just the overall usage. So that's really all CpuMon is, a little statistical graph showing a % representing how busy your computer is on your desktop. The information is already available on Windows. It's not all that useful unless you happen to like looking at graphs which some people do. Some people like loading their desktop up with little widgets that have graphs and statistics. It's more desktop decoration than practical. Won't do much to improve the efficiency, unfortunately. Some monitors can actually slow down your computer since it's constantly working to print that graph (just a little). The only useful thing is that it can show you if something is busy that you don't know about. An example being, once in a while a program will close mysteriously -- but you'll notice your computer feels sluggish, having a visible CPU Usage monitor can show you that something weirds going on. Then you go to the Windows Task Manager and kill the program -- saving you from having to reboot. If you're actually interested in those graphs all over the place for eye candy, there are better more customizable free software out there to use.

Edited November 17, 2010 by rob86 (see edit history)

[mahesh2k 0]

rob cleared it already in previous reply. I would just extend it and say that cpu monitor is made just to monitor the process which are taking processor's resources. You can see the CPU monitor logging the current processes in idle and in time where we are using apps which are taking CPU power. You can think of it as stats tool similar to CPU stats in our task manager. One thing to note here that this utility itself takes much of processing while displaying the results to you. You can minimize the unnecessary processes by using softwares like processtamer.

[rob86 2]

Since you're trying to increase efficiency, here's one real way to do it. Find some way to check on what programs and services start up when you start the computer. I can't recommend a specific software at the moment, but maybe try http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-startup-manager.htm ? Sometimes there are things running in the background on your computer you don't even know about. Things such as, Camera junk from a camera you no longer use, or printer software from a printer that's been thrown out.. etcJust be careful you don't disable something important. If you don't know what something is, better not to disable it but sometimes you'll find something obvious that can be disabled.

[mahesh2k 0]

Disabling some processes can be a good option to improve startup. In that case you don't have to use any software for startup or improvement. There are some guides from black viper that tells you how to improve the startup. I guess that is more than enough. Depending on your operating system and the devices attatched you can remove these processes.

[AzureMusique 0]

I also happened to have asked a friend on Facebook on the very same issue. If all that'a CPUMon really is, then it's just nothing more than a customizable task manager that gives more details. The only thing now is that I need to know which are the processes I can't disable. I know I had disabled the explorer.exe once and my computer didn't like that, so I know I won't do that again. I also know that there are a few others that I've read that are essential in helping to run the computer, except that I cannot remember what they are. However, I cannot figure out on how to disable some of those programs (that I never use) that would for sure stay disable upon start-up.I think I'll just stick with Task Manager.

[rob86 2]

Another thing you could do is use another one of Microsoft's 'hidden' tools. Click the start button, in the "Run" field type in msconfig and push enter. A window will pop up with tabs such as General, Boot, Services, Startup.

 

Click on services, and there should be a check box that says "Hide All Microsoft Services" -- check that, it'll take out pretty much all the really important stuff and make the list small. Look through it, and disable any obvious things if there are any or ask here.

 

Then click on startup tab, and look through it for things you don't need and disable them. Or ask if you aren't sure.

 

And yeah, don't disable explorer.exe

[mahesh2k 0]

As i said earlier in this thread you can find out some processes that are needed and discard which are running idle. By the way you should get process explorer from microsoft's technet site. This little utility gives more information about running processes so it's handy. Other than that here is the link to windows 7 process configuration guide. You can search for XP and Vista guide as well on that site if you want.

 

http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/

 

Hope this helps for starters.

[k_nitin_r 8]

CPU monitoring is simply determining the amount of CPU time used by running processes. You can determine the total CPU usage as a percentage or can determine the CPU usage for individual processes.CPU monitoring is perfectly legal as long as you do it on your own computer. You may find it perfectly normal to monitor somebody else's CPU usage, but there are privacy concerns - for a normal user, if you were able to tell when the CPU usage was high, you could make a fairly good guess of when he or she is using his or her computer and that's a violation of his or her privacy.CPU monitoring does not involve hacking at all, and it certainly is not a device, although you can get devices to plug into your computer to monitor the CPU activity for debugging without having to install software specifically to work with it on the host (the 'subject') computer.If you do want to increase the efficiency of your laptop, the first thing you ought to do is run it in a low power mode. Every vendor gives you a different set of tools to adjust the power saving level of the computer, ranging from a single Maximum performance or Maximum battery life setting to settings for individual components such as the DVD-ROM drive, the CPU, the display brightness, hard disk spin, and cooling fan. The next thing you can do to increase your laptop computer's efficiency is to set a dark desktop wallpaper so when you don't need to use your computer, you can minimize all of the windows and let the black desktop wall paper be shown on the screen, reducing the electricity consumption by the display. If you are using an OLED display, which is quite uncommon, using a darker background image will do you no good because OLED screens do not consume any lesser electricity when displaying darker colors. If you can, use a solid black desktop background and avoid setting a wallpaper because additional CPU cycles would be used in displaying the image. You can take the icons off the desktop too - perhaps create a single folder in which you can dump all of the icons into - to increase the amount of black (and thus reduce the amount of electricity used by the screen) across the screen. You can disable all of the programs that you do not use but run in the background, starting with the ones in the system tray because they are the easiest to disable. Most, if not all, of the programs will have settings that let you prevent the programs from starting up along with Windows. If you do not use an instant messenger, you've got a couple of things to disable right there! On all of your browsers, use the private browsing feature because a regular browsing mode saves cookies, history, and other browsing information to your hard disk drive and writing to the hard disk drive uses up more electricity. Instead, using the private browsing mode will get the browser to store all of the browsing information in memory instead of writing it to the disk drive. I'm assuming you don't really need to save your browsing history or cookies since that's the effect of using private browsing (also referred to as incognito browsing). If you're comfortable with editing the registry and removing programs from the Startup folder in the Start Menu, clean up those lists too. Often, you won't find some of those programs in the system tray but they run silently in the background. Finally, unplug any devices that you do not use. If you have a cellular broadband modem that you are not using, unplug it! If you have an external hard disk drive that you are not using, unplug it. If the external hard disk drive uses an external power adapter, unplug the adapter too because many hard disk drives do not shut down completely even after you have unplugged them from the USB port of your computer. Some USB devices automatically go into standby mode when you unplug them from the USB port of the computer, which is another reason to have them unplugged but if you are not going to use them for a while, you might want to turn them off completely either with a power switch on the device or by unplugging them or by using a physical power switch.To further increase the efficiency, this last one is a no-brainer. Turn off the computer by setting it to go into Hibernate mode when you no longer need it.