SYSTEM INFORMATION TOOLS
WINDOWS SYSTEM INFORMATION TOOL
The System Information Tool presents a range of basic information about your system. Unfortunately much of it can be a little difficult to comprehend or may not be quite what you are looking for. Some of the more useful pieces of information include the IRQ allocations under Hardware Resources>IRQs; the listing of your hardware components by type under the Components section; and a listing of all the system drivers loaded up and their status under Software Environment>System Drivers. In general the System Information Tool is best used by medium to advanced users who can comprehend the interface and the information much easier than a beginning user. Its major advantage is that it is a free and built‐inutility that anyone can easily access.
You can access the Windows System Information Tool by going to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Information, or go to Start>Run and type msinfo32.exe (without quotes) and hit Enter. Note that for this utility to work, you will need to have the Help and Support service enabled ‐ see the Services section for more details.
DEVICE MANAGER
You can access the Windows Device Manager under the Control Panel>System>Hardware tab, or by going to Start>Run and typing devmgmt.msc (without quotes) and then press Enter. As a built‐in Windows utility you can gain a great deal of useful information from this tool. Your major devices are displayed undervarious categories, and you can even choose to update individual device drivers or uninstall a device altogether should you wish.
DIRECTX DIAGNOSTICS
You can access the DirectX Diagnostic Utility (DXDiag) by going to Start>Run and typing dxdiag (without quotes) and pressing Enter. DXDiag is another built‐in Windows Diagnostic/System Information tool that is part of the DirectX API. When DXDiag starts up you don t need to worry about WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) certificate checking ‐ WHQL certification is not an indication of a driver s stability or functionality (See the Driver Installation section for more details). The main tab of DXDiag, called System, shows basic information about your system such as CPU type and speed, amount of physical RAM and the total pagefile (Virtual Memory) usage among other things. Under the Display, Sound and Input tabs you can find more information about the particular hardware you are running for each of these functions, and also conduct some basic tests to ensure they are working to their full extent under DirectX. In particular you should ensure that all the DirectX Features listed are Enabled and that any Acceleration options are at maximum (slider to the far right).
The free Everest Home Edition has now been officially discontinued. However you can still download the last free version from sites like MajorGeeks and Softpedia. Keep in mind that over time it will become dated and unable to correctly identify all new hardware. In terms of depth of useful information and ease of use, Everest is one of the best free utilities you can get.
If you re curious about your motherboards chipset type, to install the correct motherboard chipset drivers for example, go to Motherboard>Chipset and you can see the chipset type and once again a link to the chipset manufacturer s website. You can even run memory benchmarks under the Benchmark section of Everest to test your RAM.
SIW is the System Information for Windows tool which can be downloaded from the SIW Website. It is very similar to Everest Home Edition. Once you have downloaded the program, you can simply run it from the file there is no need to install anything. The interface is quite intuitive; click the items in the left pane to see more details about them. For example, to find out more about your motherboard, click the Motherboard item under the Hardware section. After a short pause, the details will be shown in the right pane. Alternatively, you can access these items by going to the Software or Hardware menus at the top of the screen. To find out more about these functions, go to the Help menu and select Online Help. You can also check for updates to SIW under the Help menu.
You can download the latest version of 3DMark from the Futuremark Website and you can read more about its main functionality under the Benchmarking & Stress Testing section in this guide. 3DMark is primarily designed as a graphics benchmarking utility, however it has a nice system information section that gives you plenty of important info. Start 3DMark and on the main screen, click the Details button under the System section. A browser screen will open with a vast array of information about your system. Everything from your CPUs clock speed and L1 & L2 Cache sizes, to your hard drives capacity and interface type
This provides comprehensive and easy to understand information about your system configuration. It will show hardware configuration, video-card information, OS details, list of running processes, and other information. This information can be saved as a file and sent to technical support. And it's absolutely FREE.
Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit
The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server
Category: SystemAnalysis, Utility, Windows
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