We study the total graph of a finite commutative ring. We calculate its metric dimension in the case when the Jacobson radical of the ring is nontrivial, and we examine the metric dimension of the total graph of a product of at most two fields, obtaining either exact values in some cases or bounds in other, depending on the number of elements in the respective fields.

Let $R$ be a ring and $Z(R)$ be the set of all zero-divisors of $R$. The total graph of $R$, denoted by $T(\Gamma (R))$ is a graph with all elements of $R$ as vertices, and two distinct vertices $x, y\in R$ are adjacent if and only if $x+ y\in Z(R)$. Let the regular graph of $R$, $\mathrm{Reg} (\Gamma (R))$, be the induced subgraph of $T(\Gamma (R))$ on the regular elements of $R$. In 2008, Anderson and Badawi proved that the girth of the total graph and the regular graph of a commutative ring are contained in the set $\{ 3, 4, \infty \} $. In this paper, we extend this result to an arbitrary ring (not necessarily commutative). We also prove that if $R$ is a reduced left Noetherian ring and $2\not\in Z(R)$, then the chromatic number and the clique number of $\mathrm{Reg} (\Gamma (R))$ are the same and they are ${2}^{r} $, where $r$ is the number of minimal prime ideals of $R$. Among other results, we show that if $R$ is a semiprime left Noetherian ring and $\mathrm{Reg} (R)$ is finite, then $R$ is finite.