XPost: alt.comp.os.windows-10, alt.comp.os.windows-11   
   From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Mon, 9/1/2025 2:09 PM, R.Wieser wrote:   
   > Arlen,   
   >   
   >> This morning my Windows 10 computer was suddenly slower than   
   >> a lame dog.   
   >>   
   >> Nothing was working. I couldn't get the process-explorer   
   >> three-fingered salute to come up.   
   > ...   
   >> I couldn't even get "whatishang" or "whocrashed" or anything   
   >> to come up.   
   > ...   
   >> So I ... hacked out that script for next time.   
   >   
   > If the three-finger salute isn't coming up and neither do those programs   
   > than you can bet your life on it that script won't run either.   
   >   
   >> So I force rebooted the damn PC & hacked out that script   
   >> for next time.   
   >   
   > And that shows you that it won't be easy to find out which program/process   
   > causes the slow-down: You either can't run anything (including your batch   
   > script), or you can but than the processes causing the slow-down are not   
   > running (duh) and you therefore can't find them.   
   >   
   > Yup, a classic catch-22 :-)   
   >   
   > Regards,   
   > Rudy Wieser   
      
   I'm not convinced you can necessarily measure everything on this OS.   
   It makes significant usage of virtualization. Yes, we get some cyclic   
   counts for things that use virtualization, but on occasion they   
   "don't look reasonable or meaningful". The Memory Compressor is not   
   reported in Task Manager, yet it is visible in Process Explorer.   
   That's how I measure that one, if I need to know.   
      
   I don't think this is necessarily a job for scripts. Maybe back in   
   the WinXP era, when things were still sane and rational, a script would   
   have been perfect for summarizing a situation. Today, we have the   
   Intel performance counters as an absolute -- if you can figure out   
   what to do with them in a given situation. They measure "something" at   
   the hardware level. But if a containerized NVidia video driver   
   starts doing "GeForce Experience Things", how would you know ? It's   
   in another Ring. Similarly, the RealTek NIC driver, the file names   
   and release notes kinda hint that Microsoft made them containerize as   
   well. These might be officially part of the kernel, and reported   
   as a component of System.   
      
   When VirtualBox is "stuck" during the boot process, what is that ?   
   At one time, it really was "stuck". Well, I figured out what was   
   happening there, and if you set your VM to 6144MB of RAM (6GB),   
   as the OS boots, it is doing a malloc that runs at 300MB/sec (implies   
   a malloc running a 4KB page-at-a-time). And while that malloc is   
   slowly running, the screen animation stops until it is complete.   
   What broke there ? Is the malloc running through layers of virtualization ?   
   Who really knows ?   
      
   I've looked at Task Manager before, something is going on, and the CPU numbers   
   all read zero. If I use Process Explorer, the extended precision readout   
   there shows the activity level is not 0, it's finite and makes sense.   
   But just adding two more zeros on the end of the Task Manager readout,   
   may still not provide a satisfying answer. There are still going to be   
   things where you can't be sure.   
      
   What I use these days, for "honest weights and measures", is the power   
   meter connected to the cord of this PC. When it measures 33 watts, nobody   
   is fooling around in that box. If it reads 57 watts and Task Manager   
   reads "0" for everything, then we know someone has their finger   
   on the scale. You can hide from me in software, you can't hide from   
   my power meter.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)