PCNetMonitor is a program for monitoring and logging performance data from local or remote computers. It makes use of the Windows WMI DCOM interface to connect to five standard CPU performance counters and three standard network performance counters. It displays the counter data in a GUI and also displays counter statistics over several different time periods. It records all data to a formatted log file that can be readily imported to Excel for plotting and subsequent analysis. It can also run timed tests to measure performance over user-specified time periods.

Features:
1. Provides interactive GUI with eight separate performance counters: Five standard CPU counters and three standard network counters.
2. GUI provides tool tips on all controls.
3. Scrolling text display with option to turn off scrolling.
4. Displays running averages for all counters over six different time periods: 1 min, 2 min, 5 min, 10 min, 60 min, and total time.
5. Displays minimum, maximum, and average values for all counters.
6. Provides timed test capability to measure performance over precise time intervals.
7. Provides start, stop, and pause controls to easily stop and restart monitoring.
8. Provides a refresh command so that the user can get an immediate performance sample at any time.
9. Pause command inserts comment into log file but does not close the log file. This is very useful for monitoring performance between system changes.
10. Log file names include log start date/time and a user-defined suffix.
11. User can select sample rates as high as 10 Hz.
12. Generates a delimited log file for easy plotting with Excel.
13. All log entries are time stamped with UTC time and date.
14. The log file can be opened and examined using the GUI at any time during or after a monitoring session.
15. Designed to run for long periods with minimum CPU usage. Uses less than 1% of local and remote CPU for sample times greater than 10 sec. If sample times are less than 1 second, then CPU usage can be as high as 30%.
16. Resides in task tray when minimized for background operation.
17. Can provided highly detailed remote hardware configuration via MSConfig interface..
18. Provides a login dialog for administrator access to remote computers, when necessary.
19. Can save administrator account credentials to a strongly encrypted file. This file can be loaded automatically at program startup or manually at any time to speed up the remote computer connection process.
20. An Excel automation interface is included to automatically transfer performance data to Excel for subsequent analysis and plotting.
21. The current log file or any previously saved log file can be plotted using the Excel interface. Up to ten separate plots are automatically generated - one for each column of performance data in the log file.
22. GIF image files are automatically saved for each Excel plot that is generated.

Each session of it produces up to three separate output files. The primary output file of interest is the performance log file. This log file is named with a date and time prefix.

It monitors the eight performance parameters listed in Table 1 below. These performance parameters are computed from WMI counters that are generated by the WindowsXP operating system. The eight counters are divided into two categories: CPU and network. The counters in each of these categories are monitored to separately since they involve separate hardware/software that may not be installed on every computer. For example, not every computer will have a network card. If a network card is unavailable then PCNetMonitor will continue to operate and will display only as many performance counters as are available.

It includes an Excel automation interface to generate plots of all performance parameters versus time. This capability requires that Microsoft Excel (version 9 or later) is installed on the computer running PCNetMonitor . Performance plots can be generated at any time during or after a monitoring session. Plots can also be generated from any previously saved log files.

It can accept two optional command line arguments. The first argument is the IP address or host name to connect to and the second argument is the name of the network interface to be used for the network counters. A typical command line text string is shown below.

PCNetMonitor.exe 130.122.43.18 "Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller - Eacfilt Miniport"

The network interface name can be determined from the Network control panel which is part of the Windows operating system, or it can be determined from the Net Info link on the PCNetMonitor GUI.

The license of this software is Free, you can free download and free use this network monitoring software.