System Drivers Page
The System Drivers page shows details of the Windows kernel drivers and file system drivers on the current system.
To open the Services page
- Select the Spotlight connection in the Spotlight Browser.
-
Click Processes | System Drivers.
The System Drivers table contains the following information for each device.
Note: Not all of these columns will be visible by default. To view hidden columns, right-click a column heading and choose Organize Columns... from the shortcut menu.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
|
Driver |
The name of the driver as reported to the system. The "tree bar" to the left of the names is a dependency tree, showing all drivers that depend on the particular driver. |
|
Description |
The "friendly" name of the driver. |
|
Type |
Shows if the device is a Kernel or File System driver. |
|
State |
Shows if the driver is Running or Stopped. |
|
Start Mode |
This shows how the driver acts when Windows starts.
|
|
Accepts Stop |
Identifies whether a driver can be stopped. This information is available only for currently running devices. |
|
File |
Shows the file location of the device. This cannot be retrieved for all devices. |
CPUs Drilldown
Spotlight on Windows
Spotlight is a powerful diagnostic and problem-resolution tool for Windows operating systems. Its unique user interface provides you with an intuitive, visual representation of the activity on the host machine.
For information on Spotlight on Windows, see these sections
| Section |
Description |
|---|---|
| Background Information |
Introductory material to Spotlight on Windows. |
| Connect to a Windows System | Create / Modify / Delete connections to Windows systems. |
| Home Page | The Spotlight home page shows the flow of information and commands between various sub-components and the size and status of internal resources such as processes, disk files and memory structures. |
| Alarms |
Spotlight alerts you to problems with your system by issuing an alarm. You can configure Spotlight in the level of severity that constitutes an alarm, to disable an alarm, and the actions Spotlight takes on raising the alarm. |
| Drilldowns | When you have isolated a problem, you can display a drilldown page, whose charts and tables provide a detailed breakdown of the underlying statistics. |
| View | Options | Customize Spotlight. |
| Troubleshooting | Solve problems using Spotlight. |
For information on using Spotlight applications See
CPUs Page
The CPUs page shows performance details of all the CPUs on the current Windows system. The CPUs page contains several charts.
To open the CPUs page
- Select the Spotlight connection in the Spotlight Browser.
-
Click CPUs.
Charts on the CPUs page
Notes:
- Every chart has a legend (list of symbols) to its right that describes the various series (line graphs) on the chart.
- Click an item in the legend to highlight its series (line) in the chart. Click a second time to return the series to its normal appearance.
- Move the mouse pointer over an item in the legend to view the current value for that series within the chart.
| Chart | Description |
|---|---|
| CPU Utilization |
Shows the CPU utilization for all the processors on the system. Each processor is represented by a single line on the chart, and by an item in the legend at the top right of the chart. Note: To view CPU utilization analyzed according to processing mode, see the Processing page in the CPUs drilldown. |
| Server Work Queues | Shows the number of threads (program execution units) that are waiting to run on each processor. A sustained queue length greater than four might indicate processor congestion. |
| Interrupts |
The Interrupts chart shows the number of interrupts per second per CPU on the Windows system. Each CPU is represented by a single graph on the chart, and by an item in the legend at the top right of the chart. The Interrupts chart is designed to show if any CPUs on the system are bearing a disproportionate level of the I/O load. |
| Kilobytes Transferred |
The Kilobytes Transferred chart shows the rate of kilobytes transferred per CPU on the Windows system. Each CPU is represented by a single graph on the chart, and by an item in the legend at the top right of the chart. |
Processing Page
The Processing page on the CPUs drilldown shows the overall performance details of CPUs on the current Windows system. To view performance details for individual CPUs in the system, see the CPUs Page and Multiprocessor Page. The Processing page contains several charts.
To open the CPUs page
- Select the Spotlight connection in the Spotlight Browser.
-
Click CPUs | Processing.
Charts on the Processing page
Notes:
- Every chart has a legend (list of symbols) to its right that describes the various series (line graphs) on the chart.
- Click an item in the legend to highlight its series (line) in the chart. Click a second time to return the series to its normal appearance.
- Move the mouse pointer over an item in the legend to view the current value for that series within the chart.
| Chart | Description |
|---|---|
| Total CPU Utilization |
Shows the combined CPU utilization for all processors on the system. Two data series are displayed:
Note: To view CPU utilization for the individual CPUs in the system, see the CPUs Page. |
| Total Processor Queue Length |
Shows the total number of threads (program execution units) that are waiting to be run on ALL processors. A sustained processor queue length greater than three times the number of processors can indicate processor congestion. Note: To view Server Work Queues for the individual CPUs in the system, see the CPUs Page. |
| Total Process & Thread Count |
This chart displays the total number of Windows processes and threads that exist. A process is one instance of an application program or system service that is currently executing on the server. Each process will have one or more threads which are the basic entity that can be scheduled. Sophisticated application processes such as SQL Server or Exchange can have dozens of threads running concurrently. |
| Context Switching |
The Context Switching chart shows the rate at which Windows has been processing context switches. A Context Switch occurs when a processor switches from one thread to another. Context switches occur when a running thread voluntarily relinquishes the processor, is preempted by a higher priority ready thread, or switches between user-mode and privileged (kernel) mode to use an Executive or subsystem service. |