[powershell] How do I find the CPU and RAM usage using PowerShell?

I am trying to get PowerShell to give me the RAM and CPU usage, but I can't figure out what WMI class to use. My computer has two processors, so it would be useful to have the information for both of them.

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The answer is


Get-WmiObject Win32_Processor | Select LoadPercentage | Format-List

This gives you CPU load.

Get-WmiObject Win32_Processor | Measure-Object -Property LoadPercentage -Average | Select Average

You can also use the Get-Counter cmdlet (PowerShell 2.0):

Get-Counter '\Memory\Available MBytes'
Get-Counter '\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time'

To get a list of memory counters:

Get-Counter -ListSet *memory* | Select-Object -ExpandProperty  Counter

To export the output to file on a continuous basis (here every five seconds) and save to a CSV file with the Unix date as the filename:

while ($true) {
     [int]$date = get-date -Uformat %s
     $exportlocation = New-Item -type file -path "c:\$date.csv"
     Get-Counter -Counter "\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time" | % {$_} | Out-File $exportlocation
     start-sleep -s 5
}

I have combined all the above answers into a script that polls the counters and writes the measurements in the terminal:

$totalRam = (Get-CimInstance Win32_PhysicalMemory | Measure-Object -Property capacity -Sum).Sum
while($true) {
    $date = Get-Date -Format "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"
    $cpuTime = (Get-Counter '\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time').CounterSamples.CookedValue
    $availMem = (Get-Counter '\Memory\Available MBytes').CounterSamples.CookedValue
    $date + ' > CPU: ' + $cpuTime.ToString("#,0.000") + '%, Avail. Mem.: ' + $availMem.ToString("N0") + 'MB (' + (104857600 * $availMem / $totalRam).ToString("#,0.0") + '%)'
    Start-Sleep -s 2
}

This produces the following output:

2020-02-01 10:56:55 > CPU: 0.797%, Avail. Mem.: 2,118MB (51.7%)
2020-02-01 10:56:59 > CPU: 0.447%, Avail. Mem.: 2,118MB (51.7%)
2020-02-01 10:57:03 > CPU: 0.089%, Avail. Mem.: 2,118MB (51.7%)
2020-02-01 10:57:07 > CPU: 0.000%, Avail. Mem.: 2,118MB (51.7%)

You can hit Ctrl+C to abort the loop.

So, you can connect to any Windows machine with this command:

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName MyServerName -Credential MyUserName

...paste it in, and run it, to get a "live" measurement. If connecting to the machine doesn't work directly, take a look here.


I use the following PowerShell snippet to get CPU usage for local or remote systems:

Get-Counter -ComputerName localhost '\Process(*)\% Processor Time' | Select-Object -ExpandProperty countersamples | Select-Object -Property instancename, cookedvalue| Sort-Object -Property cookedvalue -Descending| Select-Object -First 20| ft InstanceName,@{L='CPU';E={($_.Cookedvalue/100).toString('P')}} -AutoSize

Same script but formatted with line continuation:

Get-Counter -ComputerName localhost '\Process(*)\% Processor Time' `
    | Select-Object -ExpandProperty countersamples `
    | Select-Object -Property instancename, cookedvalue `
    | Sort-Object -Property cookedvalue -Descending | Select-Object -First 20 `
    | ft InstanceName,@{L='CPU';E={($_.Cookedvalue/100).toString('P')}} -AutoSize

On a 4 core system it will return results that look like this:

InstanceName          CPU
------------          ---
_total                399.61 %
idle                  314.75 %
system                26.23 %
services              24.69 %
setpoint              15.43 %
dwm                   3.09 %
policy.client.invoker 3.09 %
imobilityservice      1.54 %
mcshield              1.54 %
hipsvc                1.54 %
svchost               1.54 %
stacsv64              1.54 %
wmiprvse              1.54 %
chrome                1.54 %
dbgsvc                1.54 %
sqlservr              0.00 %
wlidsvc               0.00 %
iastordatamgrsvc      0.00 %
intelmefwservice      0.00 %
lms                   0.00 %

The ComputerName argument will accept a list of servers, so with a bit of extra formatting you can generate a list of top processes on each server. Something like:

$psstats = Get-Counter -ComputerName utdev1,utdev2,utdev3 '\Process(*)\% Processor Time' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object -ExpandProperty countersamples | %{New-Object PSObject -Property @{ComputerName=$_.Path.Split('\')[2];Process=$_.instancename;CPUPct=("{0,4:N0}%" -f $_.Cookedvalue);CookedValue=$_.CookedValue}} | ?{$_.CookedValue -gt 0}| Sort-Object @{E='ComputerName'; A=$true },@{E='CookedValue'; D=$true },@{E='Process'; A=$true }
$psstats | ft @{E={"{0,25}" -f $_.Process};L="ProcessName"},CPUPct -AutoSize -GroupBy ComputerName -HideTableHeaders

Which would result in a $psstats variable with the raw data and the following display:

   ComputerName: utdev1

           _total  397%
             idle  358%
             3mws   28%
           webcrs   10%


   ComputerName: utdev2

           _total  400%
             idle  248%
             cpfs   42%
             cpfs   36%
             cpfs   34%
          svchost   21%
         services   19%


   ComputerName: utdev3

           _total  200%
             idle  200%