Windows comes with lot of monitoring apps like Task Manager, Performance Monitor and Services. However, many users do not know that there is also a Resource Monitor app that comes as part of Windows operating system. You can open this app independently or from the Performance Monitor app. This tool will show a real-time resource usage of various components in your computer. You can also find out high resource consuming processes and services affecting system performance and close them. In this article, we will explore the features of Resource Monitor app in Windows 11 and explain how to close services / processes.
Opening Resource Monitor App
The easy way to open the app is by using Windows Search. Click on the lens icon on the taskbar and type “resource” in the search box. You will see the Resource Monitor app in the result and click on “Run as administrator” or “Open” link to launch the app.
Alternatively, you can open the app from Performance Monitor app. First, search and open Performance Monitor app. When you are in the app, click “Performance” heading from the left sidebar. Now, you will see a “Open Resource Monitor” link on the right pane. Click the link to launch Resource Monitor app.
Using Resource Monitor App in Windows 11
You can use the app for two major purposes:
- View the real-time resource usage to understand the overall system performance.
- Find problematic processes and kill them to protect your system from crashing.
It is also possible to stop and start the monitoring (from “Monitor > Start / Stop Monitoring” menus). This is useful to check the resource usage when you do testing during particular time.
Viewing Overall System Resource Usage
The app will show the resource usage of your computer under CPU, Memory, Disk and Network sections. Under “Overview” tab, you can click on individual tabs or click the tabs showing below the menu to view the corresponding sections. As you can see in the below screenshot, overview section is the neat way of understanding the resource usage in your system. You can collapse all the sections to view the overall real-time usages in single screen.
There are also graphical representations for each section in the right sidebar. You can expand or collapse the sidebar as per your convenient. Click the “View” dropdown showing above the graphs and select the small, medium or large option to change the graph’s size.
Analyzing CPU Usage
The CPU section will show all the process and services available on your system along with associated handled and modules. The title bar of “Processes” and “Services” sections will show the real-time CPU consumption. Expand the “Processes” section and click on “Status” column to sort the list. From here, you can find all the processes in running status to understand how those processes affect the CPU usage in real-time. Similarly, you can do the same for services to see the impact of any particular service running in your system.
Remember, there are some hidden columns in the tool. right-click on the header row of any section and choose “Select Columns…” option. This will show a list of all available columns for that section. Enable or disable the required checkboxes and click “OK” button to change the layout.
The CPU column shows the current consumption while Average CPU shows the consumption for last 60 seconds. You can use these details to find the processes/services using high CPU. If you want to kill a process, simply right-click on it and select “End Process” option.
Similarly, for terminating a service under “Services” section, right-click on any running service and select “Stop Service” option.
By default, CPU section sidebar will show “CPU – Total”, “Service CPU Usage” and individual CPU charts. You can go to “Monitor > Select Processors…” menu and choose the CPU which you want to appear in the graphical chart in sidebar.
Checking Memory Usage
Memory tab contains two sections – Process and Physical Memory. “Process” section title bar shows the overall percentage of physical memory usage in real-time. Under this section, you can find how much memory is consumed by each process running in your system. Since each process consumes different types of memory, it is necessary to understand the meaning of each column. The best way is to hover over the header row to see the tooltip and understand the meaning. Here is a quick summary:
- Working Set (KB) is the amount of physical memory currently used by the process.
- Private (KB) is the physical memory used by the process which cannot be shared.
- Sharable (KB) is the physical memory used but can be shared with other processes.
- Commit (KB) is the virtual memory allocated by system for that process.
Under “Physical Memory” section, you can get the details of used and available physical memory in MB with neat graphical representation. Click on the “Working Set (KB)” column header to sort and find high memory consuming processes. Right-click on a process and select “End Process” to terminate and release the occupied memory.
Checking Disk Usage
Disk section shows three sub-sections – processes using disk activity, actual disk activity and the storage details. You can find which process is using high disk capacity and terminate by right-clicking and selecting “End Process” option.
Analyzing Network Usage
Under “Network” tab, you can view processes using network, actual network activity, processes using TCP connection and listening ports. The “Processes with Network Activity” section shows the processes along with bytes sent, received and total (sent and received together). Sort the process based on total column to find the high network using processes. You can make use of these details here to find which processes are slowing down your internet connection and terminate them.
The sidebar graphs in “Network” section will show details of each network like TCP connections, LAN, ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Final Words
Resource Monitor is the cool app to monitor system performance based on CPU, disk, network and memory usage. You can use the app to find which tasks are consuming higher resources. Like Task Manager, you can right-click and select “End Process” to terminate any running process from Resource Monitor app. You can also close high CPU consuming services to improve the performance of your system.
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