19-9LESSON 1 USING TASK MANAGERF19US04FIGURE 19-4 THE NETWORKING TAB O...
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9Lesson 1
Using Task Manager
F19us04
Figure 19-4 The Networking tab of Task Manager shows current network activity.By default, the graph of network activity for each connection scales dynamically toshow how much network utilization there is when compared with the theoretical max-imum for the connection. For example, on a 100 Mbps connection, when there is nonetwork activity on a connection, the vertical scale on the graph shows the values 0percent, .5 percent, and 1 percent of the theoretical maximum. As network activityincreases, the graph scales to show a greater percentage—up to 100 percent, indicatingthe full 100 Mbps potential. Because most people use this tab not to measure the exactnetwork throughput, but rather to see whether there is network throughput (and some-times what the maximum value is), this scale can be rather confusing. Fortunately, youhave two options for controlling the way Task Manager displays the graph:■
On the Options menu, click Show Scale to turn the vertical display of the scale onand off.■
On the Options menu, click Auto Scale to turn the automatic scaling on and off.When the Auto Scale option is turned off, the graph always shows a range of 0 to100 percent. This is usually a more useful view, unless you are trying to see verysmall amounts of network utilization.The detailed information at the bottom of the tab displays current percent of networkutilization and the theoretical link speed for each enabled adapter. When viewing thecurrent percent of network utilization, you should keep the following in mind:■
On wired Ethernet connections, you can usually expect to see a peak utilizationvalue of 60 to 80 percent.■
On wireless connections, you can expect to see peak utilizations of 30 to 50 per-cent, depending mostly on position of the wireless access point and structuralinterference (such as walls, heating ducts, or other devices).When viewing network utilization and trying to figure out whether your connection isliving up to its capacity, do not expect to see 100 percent utilization, even on the bestof connections. However, if you see utilization considerably below the peak valueslisted previously, you should investigate the connection for potential problems.