Wise System Monitor [ freeware ]

[MilesAhead]

I guess this has been out for a while, but I just noticed it.  Wise System Monitor has a nice floating window in the notification area that shows current internet download and upload speed, Ram usage, CPU usage and CPU temp.

On my Laptop Task Manager shows virtually zero for resources used by just the floating window, except for Ram which indicates about 5 MB used.  Not bad.  The window stays on top and is only about 12 pixels high.  Also you can open it up for more details on hardware, OS etc..

A nice little freeware it will run on XP and later Windows.

[tomos]

Wonder how it knows current upload/download speeds -- is it testing it very often
if so, wouldnt that use up all your bandwith then?

[MilesAhead]

Wonder how it knows current upload/download speeds -- is it testing it very often
if so, wouldnt that use up all your bandwith then?

I haven't noticed any resource consumption other than about 5 MB of Ram.  I would guess that it queries WMI info every few seconds.  I have a freeware Tray Disk LED simulator from another programmer that gets the disk activity from WMI.  I sense no performance penalty and leave it enabled when I defrag.

Wise claims they did a lot of testing with the aim of leaving Performance Monitor in the tray all the time.  From using their other utilities I have a pretty good feeling about their software.

I just ran broadband speed test with Wise floating window, without, then with it running again.  I got some variation in the speed.  But I think it is just variation from run to run as there are a lot of people on the WiFi at the college here.  In fact the first run with Wise floating window running was the fastest.

I like it because even though the font in the floating window is pretty small, it is white text on black background so even with my semi-blurry vision I can read the numbers.  And the CPU activity uses a little rectangular blue graph. I think it is pretty cool.  For example if you left click on the Ram usage number it brings up a window with a pie chart of used/free physical ram and a list of processes and the ram used by each. If you left click the CPU Temp number it brings up a window with indicators for CPU, GPU and HD temps.

I think you'll like it if you give it a try.