How to Monitor a System Processor in Windows XP

Monitoring the System Processor can achieved by following the provided steps below.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A computer with Windows XP Home/Professinal, networking access, ehow.com guide for easy to follow instructions, and patience.

1. Since we still have the System Monitor already open, if not you can access it by selecting Start--> Administrative Tools--> Performance. System Monitor opens by default.

2. In the System Monitor window, click the Add button on the toolbar.

3. In the Add Counters dialog box, select the following performance objects and counters:
   
   Select Processor from the Performance object drop-down list, select Interrupts/ Sec in the counter list box and click the Add button.

4. Click the Close button. You should see these counters added to your graph.

5. Note the Processor> %Processor Time Counter (which was added by default). If this counters average is below 85%, you don't have a processor bottleneck.

6. Note the Processor> Interrupts/Sec counter. If this counter is below 1000 on a Pentium computer you don't have enough processes or hardware generating excessive interrupts.

7. Leave the System monitor open for we will use it one more time to monitor our Disk Subsystems.

Tips & Warnings

• Following these steps with ensure that yu have followed the steps correctly to monitor your System Processor in Windows XP Home/Professional.