Tracking CPU usage on customer machine to detect high CPU usage process - windows

My customer complain that our window desktop application slow down sometimes. I don't see any strange in the my application log file. So I think that the CPU may be used by another application. So, is there any way (or tool) to track high CPU usage on client machine?
Thanks,

you can use the tool Performance monitor for the windows server.
You can track various processes CPU utilization (Processor time etc). This way you could track on your processes particularly and can get CPU utilization for your processes.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749115.aspx

Related

Is there a way to profile CPU utilization for ALL java processes on a particular machine?

As described in the title: is there a tool to profile CPU utilization for ALL java processes on a particular machine for a particular time period? seems like most of the existing tool are for single process only.
Any profiler can do that, just attach them to all JVMs.

How to monitor CPU and memory usage in Windows Server 2008

I am new to Windows servers and I'm using Windows Server 2008.
I have to monitor CPU usage and memory usage in percentage.
I am using performance monitor for that but there are lop many options under CPU and Memory section I am confused which option I need to select to get CPU and memory usage.
I've being using windows server along many years using the task manager and the resource monitor (under the performance tab) to check, detect or fix any matter related with network, CPU, memory or disk input/output.
For historical reports regarding usage you've to record into a third party application configuring the SNMP service.
I found the solution. No need for external software.
In "Start -> Administrative tools-> Performance monitor" we need to set %CPU and committed bytes and it starts displaying a graphical report.

Is there any way to find out and/or limit GPU usage by process in Windows?

I'd like to launch CPU and GPU intensive process on some machines, but these processes must not interfere with user's tasks. So I need to limit or at least detect GPU usage by my processes. These processes are closed-source, so I can't watch GPU usage from inside.
The answer to your subject line question is: yes (On Windows Vista and up), use Process Explorer from Microsoft to monitor per process GPU usage. nvidia's parallel nsight can do this also. Now, the body of your question sounds like you want to do this remotely. Unfortunately I'm not aware of a way to do this remotely. Still, hopefully this will be of some use to you.
edit to add: If you fire up Process Explorer I don't think it shows the GPU stats by default, to get them right click on the list of columns and add them.
The GPU is a resource that can only be used by one program at a time. If another process is using the GPU, then you can't get access to it.
A program may run multiple GPU kernels at the same time, but it's up to that program how those get run. There's no real concept of scheduling like there is with the OS and CPU processes.
Some vendors may have a way for you to check on the status of the device, like # cores in use, heat, fan speed, etc, but that won't let you change what's happening on it, and it will be specific to each vendor/device.

Is there any way of throttling CPU/Memory of a process?

Problem: I have a developers machine (read: fast, lots of memory), but the user has a users machine (read: slow, not very much memory).
I can simulate a slow network using Fiddler (http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/)
I can look at how CPU is used over time for a process using Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx).
Is there any way I can restrict the amount of CPU a process can have, or the amount of memory a process can have in order to simulate a users machine more effectively? (In order to isolate performance problems for instance)
I suppose I could use a VM, but I'm looking for something a bit lighter.
I'm using Windows XP, but a solution for any Windows machine would be welcome. Thanks.
The platform SDK used to come with stress tools for doing just this back in the good old days (STRESS.EXE, CPUSTRESS.EXE in the SDK), but they might still be there (check your platform SDK and/or Visual Studio installation for these two files -- unfortunately I have niether the PSDK nor VS installed on the machine I'm typing from.)
Other tools:
memory: performance & reliability (e.g. handling failed memory allocation): can use EatMem
CPU: performance & reliability (e.g. race conditions): can use CPU Burn, Prime95, etc
handles (GDI, User): reliability (e.g. handling failed GDI resource allocation): ??? may have to write your own, but running out of GDI handles (buggy GTK apps would usually eat them all away until all other apps on the system would start falling dead like flies) is a real test for any Windows app
disk: performance & reliability (e.g. handling disk full): DiskFiller, etc.
AppVerifier has a low-resource simulation feature.
You could also try setting the priority of your process to be very low.
You can run MemAlloc to chew up RAM, possibly a few copies at once.
I found a related question:
Set Windows process (or user) memory limit
The accepted answer for the question has a link to the Windows API's SetProcessWorkingSetSize, so it's not exactly a tool that can limit the amount of memory that a process can use.
In terms of changing the amount of CPU resources a process can use, if you don't mind the granularity of per-core limiting of resources, Task Manager can change the processor affinity of a process.
In Task Manager, right-click a process and select "Set Affinity...", then select the processor cores that the process can be assigned to.
If the development machine has many cores but the user machine only has one, then, rather than allowing the process to run on all the available cores, set the process' processor affinity to only one core.
It has nothing to do with SetProcessWorkingSetSize
Just use internal Win32 kernel apis to restrict CPU Usage

What causes the MS Windows 'System' Process to go nuts when compiling?

A couple of times recently I have noticed that 'something' is causing the Windows System Process to sit at 50+% and it will not quit until the PC is rebooted. Happening on Win2k and Win XP so far.
This is particularly troublesome because it currently appears to be triggered by MSVC 2005/Incredibuild and rebooting the build servers is not a nice thing.
At the same time the 'System Idle Process' process is holding the rest of the CPU and the build steps themselves seem to be starved. ie. a module that normally takes <5 minutes to compile is currently taking 20+.
I'd take a few guesses at maybe being virus checker or tortoise svn but would desperatly like some other suggestions.
Edit:
I've been experiencing this as something that is triggered, and the culprit may not be ongoing. Thats not to say that some other ongoing process hasn't done something 'stupid' and is managing an active lock up of System while appearing to be idle itself.
System (100% of 1 core), and System Idle Process are sharing 98-100% of the total CPU.
Occasionaly mt.exe, link.exe, buildservice would get a look in at 1-2%.
I'm running VNC to view the machine, so it's getting a look in on occasion.
Edit 2:
When left the previous evening the build process seemed to be progressing all be it slowly, but after waiting another 13 hours the 1 hour build process hasn't completed. System is still hogging the 1 core.
My understanding is that the "System" process is the time spent in the kernel (so performing disk I/O, network I/O (you did mention Incredibuild) and the like) -- I'd check for disk fragmentation, virus checkers and possibly look at these on other machines in your Incredibuild cluster.
As the System Idle process runs at "Low" priority, it's a red herring that it'd be "taking up CPU time" -- if anything it's just showing that there is available CPU time available. The fact the processing is stuck to a single processor shows that the process is doing something that is not multi-core aware, or someone has set it's thread affinity to 1.
I've noticed the virus checking software that I use can radically slow down compilation but it does not extend beyond the end of the build. Turning off advanced and heuristic checking improves this to the extent that I do not have to disable the scanner entirely. I have changed my scanning strategy such that I use scheduled full scans now more than advanced on the fly scanning, as it hurts the perfromance of a number of apps. (n.b. I am using the latest cut of Kaspersky). I'm also using an automated backup tool (AJCBackup) that also needs to be restrained when compiling.
You may also want to consider disableing the Windows Indexing service on drives that are be used to create a lot of temporary and object files, as it doesn't provide much value in this context for the amount of performance it draws.
Edit: Have checked which processes are actually hogging the CPU core and traced them back to a given app?
We've encountered issues with Kaspersky and Incredibuild in our offices - compiles and sometimes links will just hang and never finish.
Only seems to affect some machines though which is wierd, and only Windows XP (Vista seems immune from what I've seen).
Only solution I've found so far is to turn Kaspersky off entirely - so if you find a solution then let me know!
RE: smacl, work from the Windows Search/Indexing Service (WSearch) won't be attributed to the System process's CPU time, it should come from the SearchIndexer.exe/SearchFilterHost.exe services (Vista+).
The majority of activity from System you will see will be in disk activity from the lazy writer and other disk accesses. CPU activity from System will be because of kernel activity such as drivers (ISRs/DPCs) and other kernel-level filters (which could include AV file and process filters).
Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx) can aid in viewing CPU usage across processes, including System. You can use the public Microsoft Symbol Server and this resource to get you started.
If you can take a trace with Xperf (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/performance/cc825801.aspx), I can help you analyze where the CPU time is being spent in the System (kernel) context. Xperf isn't officially supported on XP, but you can take a trace on XP and analyze it on other systems.
Xperf and Process Explorer should be able to shine a spotlight on exactly the module(s) that are causing the runaway CPU usage. Symbols may not even be necessary to diagnose the problem; simply the module name can often point to the component in question that is slowing down your system. For example, high CPU usage from ndis.sys can point to network interrupts, or activity from modules such as aavmker4.sys can point to AV software (Avast! in this case).
And as always, check if there are any updated drivers and AV software for your system.
In my office, a conflict between Incredibuild and Spyware Doctor's Immunize feature caused similar issues. Turning off Immunize solved it for us.
What anti-virus/malware do you use?
I'm having same hangs when compiling using IncrediBuild in VS2003, on clean Windows 7 without any anti-virus. It worked fine on same box in XP and Vista.

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