A slow machine: measure before you blame

Slow has a cause you can see: a pending restart, a process eating the processor, RAM full, the disk at 100 percent, a nearly full disk, or a long list of programs starting with the machine. The task monitor shows which, and the fix is the one whose number is red.

Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.

What it is for

'It has been slow for weeks' is the most common ticket on any desk, and the most common non-fix is a reboot that helps for a day. The machine that is slow because a sync client is rescanning 200 GB every hour is slow again by lunchtime. Five minutes with the task monitor names the client, and the fix is a setting, not a ritual.

How to think about it

Ask when it is slow: always, at start-up, after lunch, on one program. Check for a restart waiting on an update; that alone is a third of them. Open the task monitor and read four numbers: processor, memory, disk, and the top process by each. Check disk free space. Check what starts with the machine. Fix the one thing the numbers point at, then verify with the user's own slow task.

Worked example

Slow: always, since about two weeks ago; a restart helps for a day

The pattern says something runs all the time and grows. Not a one-off.

Update status: no restart pending

The cheapest cause, ruled out in ten seconds.

Task monitor: processor 96 percent, memory 60 percent, disk 40 percent; top process: a sync client

One number is red and one program owns it. That is the suspect.

Sync client set to sync one folder, not the whole home drive. Processor 8 percent, and the user's spreadsheet opens in two seconds

One change, and verified by the thing the user actually does.

Your turn

Write the first cheap thing to rule out on a slow machine, before opening any monitor.

Check for a pending  from an update

The trap

Reinstalling the operating system for 'slow'. It works, for a while, and it destroys the evidence. The sync client gets installed again in week one and the machine is slow again in week two.

Practise a slow machine on HoneA question on it now, a coding challenge where there is one, and it is remembered for review. Free, no email needed.