How to capture performance counters using the Windows Performance Monitor (PerfMon)

How to capture performance counters using the Windows Performance Monitor (PerfMon)

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Article ID: KB0077945

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Updated On:

Products Versions
Spotfire Server All

Description

This article describes how to use the Windows built-in Performance Monitor tool to capture performance counters, which can be useful when investigating various performance issues, CPU spikes, high memory usage etc
 

Issue/Introduction

This article describes how to use the Windows built-in Performance Monitor tool to capture performance counters, which can be used to investigate various performance issues

Environment

Windows

Resolution

Start Performance Monitor:
  • Open the Windows Start menu and type Performance Monitor, right click on it and click Run as administrator
  • OR 
  • Using Windows key and R button, bring up Run command and type perfmon, after typing the command, hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter to run it with admin privileges
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Now create a data collector set:
  1. On the left side, click Data Collector Sets
  2. In the right panel, right click User Defined > New > Data Collector Set
  3. In the Create new Data Collector Set wizard, enter a desired name for the data collector set (Spotfire in our example)
  4. Select Create manually (Advanced) and then click Next.
  5. Under Create data logs, select Performance counter, and click Next
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Select desired performance counters:
  1. Set the sample interval, for example to 5 seconds
  2. Click Add
  3. Select the desired performance counters - in the example below we'll add some basic counters to give us an overview of CPU and memory usage, click OK and then click Next: 
  • Memory: 1. % Committed Bytes in Use, 2.Available Bytes
  • Processor Information (all instances): 1. %Processor Time, 2. % Processor Utility
  • Process (all instances): 1. % Processor Time, 2. Private Bytes
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Save and run the data collector set:
  1. Browse to the directory where you would like to store the data (or create new folder), and then click Next
  2. In the next window, click Finish
  3. In the left side under Data Collector Sets > User Defined, select the newly created data collector set
  4. In the right panel right-click the performance counter (default name DataCollector01) and click Properties
  5. From Log format, select Comma Separated and then click OK
  6. In the left side under Data Collector Sets > User Defined, again select the custom data collector set, right click on it and click Start. Click Stop in the same manner to shut down collection.
 

Additional Information

External: Windows Performance Monitor 
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