Tweaking Tips: Gauge How Hard Your System Is Working
These utilities can help you assess your PCs innards without cracking the case.
>> Sandra Professional 2007 ($30 and up; free Sandra Lite version; www.sisoftware.net) details the BIOS, the motherboard chip set, PCIe slots, and more. It can also run grueling burn-in tests (to see whether a component will fail) and performance analyses.
>> CPU-Z (free) offers in-depth info on your CPU, motherboard, and memory, from the chip's code name to the motherboard chip set.
>> PowerStrip ($30, free demo) pinpoints a variety of details about your graphics card and monitor, and enables you to control a wide range of settings.
>> Nero's Infotool (free) finds out everything about your CD and/or DVD drive, such as firmware versions and supported speeds and media.
>> Spinrite ($89) analyzes your hard drive and controller right down to the bits, and can even revive some damaged drives.
>> Sysinternal's Process Explorer (free) is like Windows Task Manager but with more muscle. Dig into your CPU and memory usage, and get details on every running process.
>> FreeRAM XP Pro (free) displays a running total of your memory usage as a system tray icon. It can also free up physical memory by forcing programs into virtual memory.
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