type="topic" style="task"

      id="process-identify-hog">

  <info>

    <revision version="0.2" pkgversion="3.11" date="2014-01-26" status="review"/>

    <link type="guide" xref="index#processes-tasks" group="processes-tasks" />

    <include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>

    <credit type="author copyright">

      <name>Phil Bull</name>

      <email>philbull@gmail.com</email>

      <years>2011</years>

    </credit>

    <credit type="author copyright">

      <name>Michael Hill</name>

      <email>mdhillca@gmail.com</email>

      <years>2011, 2014</years>

    </credit>

    <desc>Sort the list of processes by <gui>% CPU</gui> to see which

    application is using up the computer's resources.</desc>

  </info>

  <title>Which program is making the computer run slowly?</title>

  <comment>

    Phil Bull

    
Explain how the System Monitor can be used to find

    misbehaving/resource-hogging processes. (A lot of process use 100% CPU or

    similar if they hang, for example.)

  </comment>

  
A program that is using more than its share of the CPU may slow down the

  whole computer. To find which process could be doing this:

  <steps>	

    <item>

      
Click the <gui>Processes</gui> tab.

    </item>

    <item>

      
Click the <gui>% CPU</gui> column header to sort the processes

      according to CPU use.

      <note>

	
The arrow in the column header shows the sort direction; click again

        to reverse it. The arrow should point up.

      </note>

   </item>

  </steps>

  
The processes at the top of the list are using the highest percentage CPU.

  Once you identify which one might be using more resources than it should, you

  can decide whether to close the program itself, or close other programs to

  try to reduce the CPU load.

  <note style = "tip">

    
A process that has hung or crashed might use 100% CPU. If this happens

    you may need to <link xref="process-kill">kill</link> the process.

  </note>

</page>