Reliability Monitor is a tool whose purpose
is to measure the stability of a system over time. In Windows 7, you can access Reliability Monitor through
the Action Center by expanding the Maintenance Area and then clicking
View Reliability History, as shown in Figure 1.
Reliability Monitor itself is shown in Figure 2.
Reliability Monitor presents a graphical view of the local
computer's reliability over the past 20 days or 20 weeks. As it rates
the stability of the system over that period on a scale from 1 (low)
to 10 (high), it traces a continuous blue line.
To assess a system's stability, Reliability Monitor tracks the following five categories
of events:
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Application failures
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Windows failures
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Miscellaneous failures
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Warnings
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Information
The Reliability Details area of Reliability Monitor provides
more information about the tracked events. Note that any critical
events that occur in the tracked categories lower the rating of the
system during a given time period (day or week).
Using Reliability Monitor to Diagnose Hardware
Failures
Reliability Monitor collects data about the
software failures that have occurred in the
recent history of the system. Because hardware failures lead to
software failures, however, this information is important even when
you are troubleshooting system failures that you ultimately
determine to be caused by faulty hardware.
When troubleshooting a failure of any sort, therefore, check
Reliability Monitor to see if Windows has recorded any relevant information about
the problem over time. Look specifically for any critical events in
the Windows Failures category. If a user complains about
Windows crashing, for example, you might find that
this problem originated on a date after there was a known change to
the system. Crashes that occur very infrequently might suggest an
association with a specific application, as opposed to a
hardware-specific problem. Crashes that occur during periods of high
read or write activity (such as during a backup) might suggest an
association with a hard disk drive.
Though Reliability Monitor can provide useful information for
troubleshooting, it is also worth noting the limitations of
Reliability Monitor as a diagnostic tool. Reliability
Monitor can indeed be used to diagnose hardware errors, but it is
useful only for those hardware failures that can be recorded by Windows. For
example, Reliability Monitor can help you trace the nature of a
memory failure that repeatedly causes stop errors. However, hardware
failures that occur before Windows even starts naturally cannot be
diagnosed by using Reliability Monitor.
In general, consider Reliability Monitor one useful option
among the Windows diagnostic tools at your disposal when you are
trying to determine the cause of a system failure.
