What Process Is Running While I'm Away?

[MJD]

Many times I come back from being away from my computer to find that some process(es) was using around 50% CPU power.  I can tell because the fans quite down when I arrive and I have a CPU monitor showing a graph of usage.  I was wondering how I could possibly use the Performance Monitor to monitor the processes while I'm away or if maybe there is an easier way to tell what process(es) are active while I'm away.  Thanks for your help!

[xTdub]

Is this Windows? It could be the defrag service or indexing service. If it is a service, you can look in the Event Viewer to get an idea of what services were running while you were away.

[wrack]

Defrag or Indexing Services are normally set to run when the PC is idle so that is what you might be seeing. If not them then further analysis is required by running the process monitor or performance monitor.

[PUC_Snakeman]

Originally, I thought maybe you might try this at a command prompt

tasklist /v

 

Maybe set it up in some sort of batch script that appends to text file?

I don't know. Just trying to help.

[The Evil Overlord]

LoneleyandBored.exe?

 

Sorry, had to do it :p

[PUC_Snakeman]

Or how about this:

Task Manager -> Performance Tab -> Resource Monitor -> CPU Tab

Leave it running while you are away.

Then, the second you get back, hit Monitor -> Stop Monitoring.

Then you can do your inspections.

[MJD]

PUC_Snakeman, I never really looked too much into the Resource Monitor in Windows 8, I really like it!  I think stopping the monitoring when I arrive back and checking the average CPU Consumption will do the trick.  Thanks!

[PUC_Snakeman]

You're welcome!