I am not sure if this is right, i ran top > top.txt and then did ctrl-c to stop it other wise it would just fill up the file with the output from top is there a proper way to direct top output to a text file I will have another go anyway. [H[J[?25l[?1c[0;10mtop - 22:54:56 up 6:52, 2 users, load average: 0.56, 0.33, 0.26[0;10m[39;49m[0;10m[39;49m[K Tasks:[0;10m[39;49m[1m 145 [0;10m[39;49mtotal,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 2 [0;10m[39;49mrunning,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 142 [0;10m[39;49msleeping,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 0 [0;10m[39;49mstopped,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 1 [0;10m[39;49mzombie[0;10m[39;49m[0;10m[39;49m[K %Cpu(s):[0;10m[39;49m[1m 6.7 [0;10m[39;49mus,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 1.6 [0;10m[39;49msy,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 0.0 [0;10m[39;49mni,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 90.9 [0;10m[39;49mid,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 0.8 [0;10m[39;49mwa,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 0.0 [0;10m[39;49mhi,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 0.1 [0;10m[39;49msi,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 0.0 [0;10m[39;49mst[0;10m[39;49m[0;10m[39;49m[K KiB Mem: [0;10m[39;49m[1m 1805236 [0;10m[39;49mtotal,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 1666724 [0;10m[39;49mused,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 138512 [0;10m[39;49mfree,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 115928 [0;10m[39;49mbuffers[0;10m[39;49m[0;10m[39;49m[K KiB Swap:[0;10m[39;49m[1m 1832956 [0;10m[39;49mtotal,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 72 [0;10m[39;49mused,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 1832884 [0;10m[39;49mfree,[0;10m[39;49m[1m 876176 [0;10m[39;49mcached[0;10m[39;49m[0;10m[39;49m[K [7m PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m[1m 5449 psutton 20 0 380m 90m 24m R 95.3 5.1 0:24.38 pyrogenesis [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 1173 root 20 0 99.8m 81m 14m S 19.1 4.6 10:05.87 Xorg [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 1 root 20 0 3504 1920 1244 S 0.0 0.1 0:01.19 init [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 kthreadd [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.02 ksoftirqd/0 [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 5 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.92 kworker/u:0 [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 6 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.21 migration/0 [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 7 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.20 watchdog/0 [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 8 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.11 migration/1 [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 10 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.12 ksoftirqd/1 [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 11 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.22 watchdog/1 [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 12 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 cpuset [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 13 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 14 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.07 kdevtmpfs [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 15 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 netns [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 17 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.16 sync_supers [0;10m[39;49m [0;10m 18 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 bdi-default [0;10m[39;49m hope this helps Paul