Updated to version 1.42 which adds setting a CPU Load limit as another way to alert you that your computer may have a runaway process.
One of my favorite browsers is Firefox. I have noticed that it uses one process no matter how many web pages are being accessed. Thus, it sometimes becomes quite a memory hog, and can even just run away with memory unless it is stopped. Other browsers, like Chrome, always use one process for each web page in order to keep the whole program from crashing due to a 'bad' website.
Just for funsies, I decided to write a script that runs in the background while monitoring active processes. You set how many processes to list and a memory threshold amount. If any process goes over that amount, the program window is displayed.
The program is called MemoryHogs and can be downloaded as either a script file if you have AutoHotkey installed on your computer or an executable version can be downloaded.
In the example below, the window will display the top two process memory hogs and will automatically appear when any process uses over 700 megabytes of memory. As you can see, Firefox is pretty close. You can change both numbers to suit your needs. If you want to keeps tabs on any number of processes, simply choose "Always Show" from the program's right click menu.
Just for funsies, I decided to write a script that runs in the background while monitoring active processes. You set how many processes to list and a memory threshold amount. If any process goes over that amount, the program window is displayed.
The program is called MemoryHogs and can be downloaded as either a script file if you have AutoHotkey installed on your computer or an executable version can be downloaded.
In the example below, the window will display the top two process memory hogs and will automatically appear when any process uses over 700 megabytes of memory. As you can see, Firefox is pretty close. You can change both numbers to suit your needs. If you want to keeps tabs on any number of processes, simply choose "Always Show" from the program's right click menu.
| Regular executable file. Just run it, no install needed. |
AutoHotkey may be installed from http://ahkscript.org