What's actually happening in there?

CPU — the brain

Your processor runs every piece of code on your computer. Each app, background service, and system task takes a slice of CPU time. When something is using a lot of CPU, your fan spins faster because the chip is generating heat.

Modern computers have multiple cores — each core can work on a different task at the same time. SysXray shows you usage per core so you can see if one core is maxed out while others are idle (a sign one process is hogging a single thread).

Memory — the workspace

RAM is your computer's short-term workspace. Every open app loads its data here. When RAM fills up, your OS starts using swap — borrowing space from your storage drive to act as extra memory. This is much slower than real RAM, which is why a full computer feels sluggish.

Your operating system tracks memory pressure — a measure of how hard it's working to satisfy memory demands. When pressure rises, the system is actively swapping and performance suffers noticeably.

Processes — everything that's running

A process is any program running on your computer — visible apps like a browser, and invisible background tasks like software updaters, cloud sync clients, and system utilities. At any moment your computer is typically running hundreds of processes simultaneously.

Most are harmless and use near-zero resources. But some go rogue — a browser tab with bad JavaScript, a stuck update process, a sync client scanning millions of files. SysXray shows you the full list sorted by CPU and memory so the culprit is immediately obvious.

Disk — storage and speed

Modern computers use SSDs that are extremely fast compared to old hard drives — but they can still become a bottleneck. High disk activity (lots of reads and writes) typically means the OS is swapping memory to disk, a backup is running, a search index is being built, or a sync client is working through a large batch of files.

SysXray shows you disk read and write speeds in real time and how full each drive is. If your computer feels slow and disk activity is high, you now know why.

Thermal — heat and fans

Your computer's fans exist for one reason: to keep the CPU and GPU below their thermal limits. When a chip gets hot it throttles itself — it deliberately runs slower to reduce heat. This is why a hot computer feels slow even if the CPU meter shows 100% usage.

SysXray displays CPU temperature and fan speed alongside a thermal pressure level so you can see exactly when your computer starts throttling and why.

Background services — what starts with your computer

Every operating system has a mechanism for running programs automatically at startup or login — without any visible window. These services keep things like cloud sync, automatic updates, and hardware drivers running in the background. There are broadly two levels:

Network — connections and ports

Every app that talks to the internet opens a network port — a numbered channel for sending and receiving data. SysXray shows you every open port and active connection on your computer, including which process opened it.

This is useful for spotting unexpected connections — a process phoning home that shouldn't be, or a development server you forgot to stop. It's also the fastest way to find what's eating your bandwidth.