Most of you have used Task Manager before — usually to close a program that is frozen or to see what processes are running in the background. But there’s another use for Task Manager that can really help you diagnose your Windows miseries 🙂 .
That’s right – that common everyday program that’s built into every version of Windows will let you see at a glance why your computer’s running so well or running like a drunken three-legged tortoise.
Open Task Manager by pressing the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys (yes there are many other ways to open it but this saves me typing since that shortcut works on all versions of Windows). When Task Manager opens you’ll see several tabs at the top. The one we’re concerned with here is the Performance tab. So click the Performance tab and view along with EB and TC.
See?
You can see from the screen shot above (taken on a Windows 7 computer) that you can quickly view your RAM and CPU (processor) usage. If your RAM is low or your CPU is nearing 100% usage — you’re computer is going to be running mighty slowly. If both your RAM is low and your CPU usage stays near 100% or a few minutes — you have problems there my friend. And you have some digging around to do.
Class dismissed!