Track Which Process Just Used Lots of Resources

When I sort Task Manager by CPU usage, the processes jump around quickly as each one starts and stops using resources. But often I miss which process was just using resources, it's either gone now or it has jumped down somewhere else in the list and is lost amongst all the others now using 00 cpu. I often don't have time to see the process name.

I need to be able to see which processes were using resources e.g. over the past minute.

How do I do that?

whs said:

1. I recommend you use Resource Monitor. There you have CPU, Memory, Disk and Network tabs. It is a much nicer way to look at the resources.

2. If you click on "Image" (in Resource Monitor > CPU tab), then it will not jump. But you have to roll thru all the processes because now they are sorted alphabetically. Also have a look at "Average CPU". That may give you a clue of CPU time usage over time.

Thanks! Sorting by "Average CPU" in Resource Monitor should be good enough for now. Sorting by average certainly won't jump around as much so I should be able to read the process names.

Ideally I'd like something that shows how much the process was using and when, rather than an average - which can be misleading.

EDIT: Ah, I didn't spot that I could tick/check a box and have the process plotted on a graph. Perfect!