# System tool to show process I/O?  (XP)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/system-tool-to-show-process-i-o-xp/535953>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 13, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/system-tool-to-show-process-i-o-xp/535953 "2010-04-13T15:18:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/system-tool-to-show-process-i-o-xp/535953/1 "2010-04-13T15:18:23Z")

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I am using XP Pro and my disk light is going nuts but I don’t have any apps running that would be reasonably doing I/O. Is there a tool that can show me process I/O, the same way that Task Manager shows CPU util and memory usage?

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**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/system-tool-to-show-process-i-o-xp/535953/2 "2010-04-13T15:28:34Z")

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[Process Explorer](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx). Taks Manager does have other columns that you can add, but not a disk I/O delta.

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**Author:** ![Khendrask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@Khendrask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khendrask)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/system-tool-to-show-process-i-o-xp/535953/3 "2010-04-13T16:21:38Z")

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Process Explorer is excellent, but if you really want to see what’s going on with Disk I/O, the same person (Mark Russinovich) has [DiskMon](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896646.aspx), which will show the nitty-gritty details of all file accesses.

He’s actually got a number of extremely useful Windows Internal utilities there.

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/system-tool-to-show-process-i-o-xp/535953/4 "2010-04-13T17:59:56Z")

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You can do a very simple check with Task Manager. Look at the amount of memory you have and the amount you use. If the latter exceeds the former, the computer will be paging.

You should also check the System Event Log and look for red entries marked Disk. Just in case your drive is failing.