Curious about the hardware usage on your Windows 10 PC? Here's a quick guide to monitoring your device's resources. Below we'll show you two different approaches to displaying information about various hardware components.
Approach 1: Task Manager
Task Manager is the simplest way to see inside computer . You may have used this tool before, to see what applications are open or to adjust startup settings. Launch Task Manager with the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Esc. Click the “Performance” tab at the top of the application to go to the detailed performance.
Here you will see a list of hardware devices down the left side. This includes the processor, graphics card, RAM, storage drives, and network connections.
The current usage of each resource is displayed below its name. Storage devices and graphics cards show percentage usage. RAM shows absolute consumption, and network connections indicate real-time transfer speed.
You can click on any of the devices in the list to open a detailed view. The information shown here will vary depending on the type of device . You generally get a real-time graph of usage that can be customized by right-clicking. Below the graph, you'll see a mix of real-time statistics and hardware specifications
For most purposes, the Task Manager's Performance tab may be sufficient. It gives you a quick look at how computer . If you're looking for more advanced monitoring capabilities, read on to learn about an alternative approach.
Approach 2: Performance Monitor
For detailed performance monitoring capabilities, you can go to Windows 10's Performance Monitor. Open it by searching for its name in the Start menu.
Performance Monitor allows you to create custom reports and charts. These can give you advanced insights into how your hardware is being used. The home page provides you with a summary table of real-time statistics. Individual charts and reports can be found in the navigation menu on the left of the window.
In the “Monitoring tools” section, click “Performance Monitor” to open the basic graphing interface. You’ll see several different metrics displayed by default. This window acts as a more advanced version of the Performance Manager tab, allowing you to graph performance data, while also viewing historical, average, and minimum values.
To add a new metric to the graph, click the green “+” button in the toolbar. A long list of available metrics will appear. These include CPU, memory usage, and network activity, as well as less common options such as power consumption, Bluetooth access, and virtual machine activity.
Select a measurement and click the “Add” button to add it to the chart. The new measurement will now appear on the graph screen.
You can change how the data is displayed using the toolbar options. Line (default), histogram and report views are available. By clicking the Customise button, you can change features of the map itself, such as colours and labels.
We've only covered the basics of Performance Monitor's functionality. There's a lot more you can do with this tool, creating custom graphs and reports. While Task Manager presents a simple and accessible interface to your hardware, Performance Monitor is aimed at system administrators who need in-depth knowledge of specific performance issues.
