By Cassie Hughes

To find this out I will use

Windows Performance

Manager and TreeSize

TreeSize Professional is a powerful and flexible hard disk space manager

Manage and clean up disk space efficiently

Visualize disk usage

Detailed analyses, down to all directory levels

Find and remove redundant files

Numerous export and reporting possibilities

Manage disk space and scan your hard disks:

Find out which folders are the largest on your drives and recover precious disk space. Use

TreeSize as a hard disk cleanup tool - It will find the space hogs and remove them.

Search for Redundant Files:

The integrated versatile file search helps you find old, big, temporary, and duplicate files on

drives, entire servers or the entire network. Search results can be moved, deleted or exported.

You can use Windows Performance Monitor to examine how programs you run affect your computer's performance. both in real time and by collecting log data for later analysis. Windows Performance Monitor uses performance counters, event trace data, and configurationinformation, which can be combined into Data Collector Sets.

Performance counters are measurements of system state or activity. They can be included in theOperating system or can be part of individual applications.

Event trace data is collected from trace providers, which are components of the operatingsystem or of individual applications that report actions or events.

Functionality - does it work Peripherals anything that’s plugged in - mouse, keyboard Performance - task manager Resource Usage - how much memory is it using Transmission - testing the signals in the wires Connectivity - is the signal getting there okay.. Or getting

lost. PING? Load Distribution - big servers sharing a network or several

networks Security - passwords Stress/Burn in - see if its stable Diagnostic - does it send error messages if something

doesn't work?

For this task I will:

Setup monitoring software to log PC performance (Processor and Memory).

Record the data for a realistic span of time - (How long will depend on my chosen sample rate), and i will make sure the PC is in normal usage during this time to get realistic data.

Compile the data in a spreadsheet and present on a graph.

Label the graph to identify any spikes or rises and falls.

Decide what figures I want to find out about the data (Maximum usage? Mean? Median? Percentage of time spent above a certain value?)

Have to decide what levels I think represent "normal" performance. State why. Then draw lines on my graph to illustrate normal performance.

What levels would indicate problems?

Computer(TFT room)

Operating System Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional

Operating System Version32-bit

System Manufacturer Zoostorm

System Model 7872-1061/A

Processor Type Intel® Pentium(R) (CPUG640

Processor Speed 2.80GHz

Hard Drive Size 465GB

Available Space on Hard Drive 423GB

Total RAM 6.00GB

File System e.g. NTFS NTFS

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Memory Used Processor Used

Opened up and

browsed

Facebook

Opened up

Microsoft Word and

3 documents

Opened up

Photo shop -

loaded 2

pictures

Opened up

YouTube

Test Reason Expected Result Actual Result

Comments

Windows Performance Monitor- % Processor Use- % Committed Bytes10 minutes sampling every 2 seconds

To check that system performs normally.How much time is tied up in carrying out calculations – how heavily loaded the system is.Long enough to give general idea, sample rate short enough to catch brief spikes.

Processor use < 37% (less than) Mean % Memory Use < 15 (less than)

9%23%

Was lower than I expected. Maybe I didn’t do enough or load enough things on at the time of the test.Was higher that I’d hoped for. I underestimated the memory requirements.

Open up and browse Facebook on Firefox

Used frequently To check performance when accessing the network/internet

Processor Usage Spike <80Memory usage increased by <20

48% Gone up by 2%

Lower than I expected it to go.Only gone up slightly

Open up Photoshop - and load two photos

Common use and heavy usage Processor Usage Spike <Close to maxMemory usage increased to 60%

66% 25%

Not close to max.. A lot lower than I expectedMuch lower than I expected

Open up Microsoft Word and three documents

Processor Usage Spike <80Memory usage increased by20%

58%23%

Much lower than I expectedOnly gone up slightly

Launch a video on YouTube and run for 3-4 minutes

To check performance when accessing the network/internet

Processor Usage Spike x2(launching the browser) <80Processor usage spiky during videoMemory usage increased to 60%

34%27%

Opened up 3 videos and it failed every time… came up with a errorEventually opened one and it ran for 3minutes.

Close all applications Check that memory and processor usage back to original levels

Processor to drop back to idolMemory use <20%

Dropped back down to starting point.

Workstation Identification: TFT2-200

One of the main things that can impact on PC performance is disk space.

I use a tool such as TreeSize to collect data on the current usage of disk space.

I then present the data as a pie chart - I made sure chose carefully which data I wanted to include.

The chart shows what percentage is taken up by Windows itself, Applications, User data, Swap files.

I also made comments on my results - and had to decide if it could it be made more efficient or 'cleaned up'?

If possible I will carry out the clean up and optimisation tasks - see how much space have I saved? What percentage does this represent?

The operating system taking up the most space followed by the applications on the computer.

You would normally have space taken up by the recycle bin and Users but the computer I was working on was fairly new so there was a very minute space taken up.

42%

33%

5%

2%

0%

18%

Operating System

Applications

Users

ProgramData

Recycle Bin

Other System Files eg.Paging

Identify the specification of the machine.

Identify the maximum memory it could take and the fastest processor the current motherboard would support (i.e. the Socket Type).

Locate graphical benchmarking information for memory and processor performance improvements. (e.g. From PassMark) Work out the likely percentage improvement over the current setup.

Locate cost information for upgrading memory and processor.

Locate cost information for a new computer of at least that spec.

Examine the data - what would be the best value for money? Upgrading or buying new?

Computer(TFT room)

Operating System Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional

Operating System Version32-bit

System Manufacturer Zoostorm

System Model 7872-1061/A

Processor Type Intel® Pentium(R) (CPUG640

Processor Speed 2.80GHz

Hard Drive Size 465GB

Available Space on Hard Drive 423GB

Total RAM 6.00GB

File System e.g. NTFS NTFS

I used Crucial.com to run a memory scan on my chosen computer to give me the information I needed - It tells you exactly what memory is on the computer - and extra memory installed.

It also gives you information and options to buy new memory that is compatible with your

computer.

As you can see after running the memory scan on

crucial.com it is able to tell me that my system is -Your GA-H61M-S2PV System Specs

Scan id - 6E946BE331D926C3

Memory:

DDR3 PC3-12800, DDR3 PC3-10600, DDR3 PC3-14900

Memory Type: DDR3 PC3-12800, DDR3 PC3-10600, DDR3 PC3-14900

DDR3 (non ECC)

Maximum Memory: 16GB

Current Installed Memory: 6GB

Total Memory Slots: 2

Available Memory Slots: 0

Guaranteed - compatible upgrades for the PC - GA-H61M-S2PV

Would cost £79.99 ex. VAT £95.99 inc. VAT

For that price you would get:

16Gb kit (8GBx2)

DDR3 PC3 -12800, CL=11, Unbuffered, NON-ECC,

DDR3-1600, 1.5v, 1024Meg x 64, Part #: CT2KIT102464BA160B

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1155 - GA - H61M - S2PV (rev. 1.0)

The fastest compatible processor with a 1155 socket is:

Xeon E3-1290 v2 which is faster than the current G640 that is

installed in this PC.

To buy a Xeon E3-1290 v2 which is faster than the current G640 that

is installed in this PC it would cost £ £682.04 Inc VAT

Cost Inc VAT

Memory 16Gb kit (8GBx2) £95.99

Processor Xeon E3-1290 v2 £682.04

Time About a hour £30.00

Total: £808.03

Cost to upgrade:

Cost of buying new:Not many places will sell a computer with this exact spec so I found a PC which isn't exactly the same spec but its close enough with only a few differences.

• It has less memory 8GB (instead of 16GB which you have now)• It has a 1 TB Hard drive, Intel® Core™ i7-3770 Processor (3.4 GHz, 3.9 GHz with Turboboost, 8 MB cache)• USB slots - USB 3.0 x 2, USB 2.0 x 4.• Motherboard is a Intel H61• Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GT 620• The only down side is the 8GB memory (upgrading will give you 16GB)

Computer(with added Processor and memory)

New Computer

Operating System Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Microsoft Windows 8

Operating System Version 32-bit 64-bit

System Manufacturer Zoostorm HP

System Model 7872-1061/A P6-2494ea

Processor Type Xeon E3-1290 v2 Intel® Core™ i7-3770 Processor (3.4 GHz, 3.9 GHz with Turboboost, 8 MB cache)

Processor Speed 3.7GHz 3.4 GHz

Hard Drive Size 465GB 1 TB Hard drive, SATA, 7200 rpm

Available Space on Hard Drive 423GB

Total RAM 16GB 8 GB DDR3

File System e.g. NTFS NTFS NTFS

Cost: Cost to upgrade£808.03

Cost to buy new:£699.99

Looking at that table you can see the differences in upgrading or buying a

new computer.

The new computer -

You get a new computer

Bigger hard drive

Better operating system

Newer version of windows

Unfortunately it will have less RAM - but it can be upgraded at a later date

And you will be spending £108.04 less

Upgrading -

More RAM - you will have 16GB

More processor speed

Spending £108.04 more

Looking at the results you can see it is £108.04 cheaper to buy a new computer - you get a better computer

except for the RAM, but for that minor issues you get a better processor, better operating

system, bigger hardrive and a new version of windows and of course saving yourself some money.

When I did the Windows Performance test and the TreeSise the computer wasn't and still isn't fully overloaded. So an

upgrade at the moment isn't needed.

It is a good idea to do a scan on your computer using Windows Performance Monitor or TreeSize about once a month

just to keep up-to-date on how your computer is working and how it is performing when you do have so many things

running and when your doing a lot on the computer.

Making sure your keeping a eye on how it is running and performing and how much

space you have left on it.

I didn't expect to find that buying a computer would be cheaper but in this case it is.