220-1102 Question 94
Single answerResource Monitor (resmon.exe)A user reports that their Windows 10 laptop becomes sluggish whenever they open a large spreadsheet and join a Teams meeting at the same time. Task Manager shows CPU usage fluctuating, but it does not clearly show why the system pauses for several seconds at a time. You want to use Resource Monitor (resmon.exe) to determine whether the slowdown is caused by excessive paging due to low available RAM. Which action should you take first?
- A
Open Resource Monitor and check the Memory tab for Hard Faults/sec and the amount of Available memory while the issue occurs
- B
Open Resource Monitor and use the Network tab to see which process has the highest Send and Receive activity
- C
Open Resource Monitor and use the Disk tab to confirm whether the drive has enough free storage space
- D
Open Resource Monitor and use the CPU tab to end the process with the highest average CPU utilization
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
Resource Monitor is designed to help troubleshoot real-time performance problems by breaking usage into CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network categories. When a system slows down under multitasking and the suspicion is insufficient RAM, the Memory tab is the best starting point. Key indicators include Hard Faults/sec and Available memory. In Microsoft documentation and standard Windows performance troubleshooting practices, a hard fault occurs when data must be retrieved from disk rather than RAM, which can contribute to pauses and sluggishness when memory pressure is high. While CPU, Disk, and Network tabs are useful for other bottlenecks, they are not the first choice when the goal is to confirm excessive paging due to low available memory.
- A. Correct.
Correct. In Resource Monitor, the Memory tab is the appropriate place to investigate suspected RAM pressure and paging activity. High Hard Faults/sec during the slowdown, combined with low Available memory, can indicate that Windows is frequently retrieving memory pages from disk because physical RAM is insufficient for the current workload. This matches the scenario, where pauses occur under heavier multitasking and Task Manager did not clearly isolate the cause.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. The Network tab is useful for identifying bandwidth-heavy processes or connection activity, but network throughput does not directly confirm whether the system is paging due to low RAM. Someone might choose this if they associate the slowdown with the Teams meeting, but the question specifically asks how to verify excessive paging.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. The Disk tab in Resource Monitor can help identify disk I/O bottlenecks, but checking whether the drive has enough free storage space is not the primary method for confirming paging caused by low memory. Low free disk space can create performance issues in some cases, but it does not directly show memory pressure the way the Memory tab does.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. The CPU tab can identify processes consuming processor time, and terminating a process may reduce load, but that does not diagnose whether the pauses are caused by paging. This option reflects a common troubleshooting mistake: attempting to fix symptoms before confirming the underlying resource bottleneck.