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Choose Your Own Adventure: Start Here

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You have arrived here because you suspect a performance problem with your Microsoft Windows computer or server.

As a kid, I loved the “Choose your own adventure” books where each choice changed the outcome of the story. Today, I lead a life where my choices change the outcome of not only my life, but the lives of my family, friends, and co-workers. So far, life is good and I want to share with you my passion for Windows performance analysis. I want to take you on an adventure and I hope that it will lead to you a happy ending.

In this blog posting, I will cover a very general overview of how to identify if a computer resource in Windows is busy or in a critical condition with links to follow how to troubleshoot that issue. Many of the links will just be placeholders for now until I can get them published.

Start Here: The Four Primitives

Start with the four primitive resources of a computer: Memory, Processor, Disk, and Network, then branch out from there. The following is the performance counters (Microsoft Performance Monitor) that indicate a potential issue with these resources.

Memory

If “\Memory\Available MBytes” is less than 100MBs or less than 5% of total physical RAM, then the computer may be running critically low on physical RAM. If your computer meets this criteria, then follow this link:
[Link to future blog post]

Processor

If “\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time” is greater than 80% on average, then the computer may be busy with the processor resource. If your computer meets this criteria, then follow this link:
Choose Your Own Adventure: User Mode Versus Privileged Mode Processor Usage

Disk

If “\LogicalDisk(*)\Avg Disk Sec/Read” or “\LogicalDisk(*)\Avg Disk Sec/Write” is greater than 15ms, then the computer may have a disk performance issue. If your computer meets this criteria, then follow this link:
[Link to future blog post]

Network

If “\Network Interface(*)\Output Queue Length” is greater than 2 on average, then the network adapter is not able to put network packets on the network fast enough. This could be due to network latency, chattiness, packet loss, etc. If your computer meets this criteria, then follow this link:
[Link to future blog post]

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