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January 26, 2009

Assess your PC with PC Performance Monitor

What's going on inside your PC?

Matt Egan

To help you work out what will and won’t run on your PC and to give you a general overview of how well it is performing, PC Advisor has introduced a free diagnostic tool. PC Performance Monitor profiles up to three computers, keeping you up to date with the goings on in your system’s innards.

Computers are distressingly complex beasts. We call them ‘systems' for one very good reason: they comprise dozens of interconnected machines, hopefully working in tandem.

This is all fine until something breaks. When a virus or Trojan infiltrates your PC, there's rarely a big bang. Since all modern malware exists to rip you off, it's designed to stay hidden, even after you've been infected. You might notice a barely perceptible slowdown, but the chances are that the first time you know you've been hit is when cash starts disappearing.

Indeed, if your machine is being co-opted into a botnet, you won't even get that notification. So it makes sense to find out exactly what's going on in your PC.

Of course, you may have a very powerful, fully up-to-date internet security suite. You may never venture online and you may absolutely know your PC is whistle-clean. No malware here, guv. But it's still a good idea to keep a weather eye on your machine.

In the horses for courses world of the modern PC, you need to pick the right setup for the right job. There's no point in trying to play the notoriously processor-hungry game Crysis on an Eee PC, for example. Unless you like the smell of burning plastic.

To help you work out what will and won't run on your PC and to give you a general overview of how well it is performing, PC Advisor has introduced a free diagnostic tool. PC Performance Monitor profiles up to three computers, keeping you up to date with the goings on in your system's innards.

It analyses and monitors networks, processes and overall performance. Perhaps most pertinently, it will tell you if your PC is up to running the successor to the much-maligned Vista - Windows 7.

Given the nightmare that was ‘Vista Ready', this is information you can't live without. So read on to learn how best to use PC Performance Monitor. Forewarned is forearmed.

NEXT PAGE: how to use PC Performance Monitor

INDEX

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Comments received

KARL MENZEL said on Tuesday, 03 February 2009

WHERE IS THE DOWNLOAD FOR THE PERORMANCE ADVISOR?????

Matt Egan said on Tuesday, 03 February 2009

Karl - as mentioned above, go to www.pcadvisor.co.uk/pc-performance-monitor, click the 'Monitor my PC' tab at the top, and then hit the: 'Click here to download and install PC Performance Monitor' link. You'll need to have registered for PC Performance Monitor.

Anthony Elmes said on Wednesday, 04 February 2009

I have down loaded several times but it do'snt work what am I doing Wrong

pwhedd99 said on Friday, 06 February 2009

OK, downloaded and set to work...but what do the bar charts meen? I'm getting a gert big red bar on the performance monitor. What should I do about it?

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