- There is an urgent need, in other words, how to use the operating system (without opening the system unit cover) to determine the model of the processor, video card, motherboard, and so on?
- Hello admin! Recently, my friends and I decided to give a friend an anniversary gift, asked what he needed, and he said - give me a video card and an interesting computer toy. We came to a computer store and said - sell us a video card, and the sales consultants said - please tell us the characteristics of your computer! How do we know these characteristics? We called a friend, but he also has no idea, he only knows that the processor is from Intel. What’s interesting is that they don’t sell the toy either, they say - find out the characteristics of the computer and we’ll select a toy for you accordingly, otherwise the toy won’t work and you’ll have to bring it back, there are a lot of you ignorant people walking around here. Find out at least what processor you have and how powerful the power supply is.
In short, it turns out that among all my friends, you are the only one who understands computers, the admin. We are waiting for help from your site!
How to find out the characteristics of your computer
Friends, there are a good dozen ways find out the characteristics of your computer in a few seconds. Let's not waste your time talking and let's get down to business.
Way to find out the characteristics of your computer No. 1
in the input field enter the command Msinfo32
and press Enter on the keyboard. In a second, complete information about our computer and the installed operating system appears. We immediately see the model of our processor, its frequency and number of cores, the manufacturer of the motherboard, the amount of RAM and a lot of other information.
If we want to set the video card model, click on the plus sign and expand the Components branch and select the Display item, see the name of our video card, its memory size, driver version, and so on.
Way to find out the characteristics of your computer No. 2
Right-click on the This PC icon and select Properties.
The System window will open, as we can see there is also a lot of information, the Windows edition, the name of the processor model and its frequency. This is the easiest way.
Way to find out the characteristics of your computer No. 3
Right-click in the left corner of the desktop and select Run.
In the input field, enter the command dxdiag.exe, the System window will open, it also displays the characteristics of our computer: operating system, processor, memory.
Go to the Screen tab and see the characteristics of the video card and monitor.
Way to find out the characteristics of your computer No. 4.
Download the cool little program CPU-Z (I carry it with me on a flash drive all the time) on the website http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html and you will find out the detailed characteristics of your processor (CPU tab),
motherboard - model, chipset, (Mainboard tab),
RAM (Memory tab)
and video cards (Graphics tab).
The user may need to know how to view the characteristics of a computer in a number of cases:
- When upgrading parts or replacing worn ones with similar ones;
- Before purchasing another computer, to evaluate the existing configuration;
- When checking the computer's capabilities for comparison with the system requirements of a program or game;
- To increase the level of knowledge about your PC.
The easiest way to determine the characteristics of a computer is to use the utilities built into Windows.
But much more information can be obtained using additional applications, most often free or shareware.
Windows Tools
Using operating system tools has the following advantages over special programs:
- Availability for any user of Windows 7, as well as earlier and later versions of the OS;
- Free use, since the price of software utilities is already included in the price of the system;
- There is no need to download applications, during which you can accidentally download viruses to your computer.
You can use these Windows tools by right-clicking on your computer's desktop shortcut (or similar Start menu item) and selecting Properties.
The window that opens shows information about the system:
- Processor model and frequency;
- Evaluation of the performance of this configuration. It is used for Windows 7 and later systems.
To decipher the data of the evaluation indicator, you should click on the inscription “Windows Experience Index” and familiarize yourself with the capabilities of the computer - its software and hardware configuration.
The higher these numbers, the better the PC or laptop performs.
The maximum index value is 7.9, for older computers – up to 5.9.
Additional Information
Advanced PC users may need to obtain additional system information.
To do this, open the “Start” menu, select “Accessories” / “System Tools” / “System Information”.
It will be even faster to start typing the phrase “system information” in the search bar of the Start menu and find the desired item among the results found.
In addition to information about the system, in the window that opens, complete information about the motherboard model, paging file, amount of RAM and virtual memory, and even the BIOS version appears.
Piriform Speccy program
Piriform products are represented by a large number of free programs, including Recuva.
With its help, you can find out other parameters - almost everything that an ordinary and even an experienced user might need.
Advice! PC Wizard also contains several utilities for testing the system - not as detailed as paid programs, but allowing to some extent to compare the parameters of RAM, hard drives and some hardware parts of the PC.
CPU-Z program
One of the most popular free programs for collecting system information is and. Like all other applications.
It shows the model and frequency of the processor, characteristics of the motherboard, memory and video card.
In addition, CPU-Z is the most convenient to use when determining the number of RAM slots.
The program takes up minimal space (there is even a portable version that does not require installation) and can be downloaded for free from the manufacturer’s website.
And the information can be recorded in a text file or immediately printed on a printer.
AIDA64
The full version of the system program (once, before the release of Windows 8, the product was called “Everest”) is paid.
But there is an opportunity to use it for free for 30 days.
There is also a portable option for using the application, for example, from a flash drive, even on a work computer, where the installation of third-party software is prohibited by the administrator.
The program is available in several languages, including Russian, and for any OS (from Windows 95 to Windows 10) and is considered the best among all modern utilities that determine system parameters.
Using it, you can find out detailed information such as uptime (time from the start of booting) of the system, the temperature of all processors (central and graphics), fan speeds, the degree of wear of the laptop battery and even the number of recharge cycles.
Directly from the AIDA64 window, you can update codecs and drivers, search for new BIOS versions and print all received data.
Using this application, you can check your RAM and processor performance by comparing them with the indicators available on the network.
conclusions
Using programs and system utilities for the Microsoft OS (from older versions to Windows 10), it is easy to determine the need to install a new driver or make sure that you have the latest version installed.
These same applications will save time and money on searching and purchasing a new program that may simply not work on a PC.
With them you will not buy memory or processor that is unsuitable for this motherboard.
All this may be needed not only by an inexperienced user, for whom information about the system will help to simply launch the game, but even by a person who independently assembled a computer from individual elements.
After all, data collection applications can tell you even more about the system and components than the parts and OS manufacturers indicate in the technical specifications.
Video:
How to find out computer specifications
How to view computer characteristics: Several ways
Finding out information about your favorite computer is very simple, but many users (especially beginners) do not know how to do this. There are many ways how to view PC settings, and today we will look at the most famous ones. Why find out information about a computer at all? For example, everyone knows that before purchasing any computer game, you need to look at its system requirements (minimum, recommended). It indicates the processor frequency, the amount of video memory, the size of the game, the amount of RAM, the operating system, etc. So, in order to compare each parameter, you need to know information about your computer, and only then analyze whether the machine can play the selected game.
Or you have decided to switch to the new Windows 10 operating system, but you don’t know whether it will work stably on your computer. In this case, you need to compare your settings with the Windows system requirements. Let's get started!
Find out general information about the system and computer
To view information about the operating system, user, processor and amount of RAM, just go to the System window. In Windows 10 or 8, right-click on the Start menu and select “System”
A window will open where basic information about the computer will be displayed.
If you have Windows 7, then right-click on the “Computer” icon on your desktop and select “Properties”
Afterwards the same window will open where you can see information about the processor, RAM, system, user.
Viewing information using the DirectX diagnostic tool
The Windows operating system has an interesting window called DirectX Diagnostic Tool, where you can find a lot of useful information about the system and PC. To open this window, press Win + R and enter the command dxdiag
This will open the DirectX Diagnostic Tool window.
As you can see, some information is displayed. If you select the "Screen" tab, you can see the parameters of your video card; moreover, you can diagnose the video adapter and other DirectX devices.
Find out system parameters on the command line
Friends, let's go to the command line and write a command, thanks to which you can see detailed information about the computer. To do this, press the key combination Win + R and type the command cmd, this will open the command line,
In the window that opens, enter the command systeminfo and make money Enter,
As you can see, basic information about your computer will open, including when the operating system was installed, how many network adapters cost, system type, user name and much more. These steps can be done not only in Windows 10, but also in previous releases (8, 7, XP).
View computer information using AIDA64
There are special third-party programs that are designed to determine the hardware (parameters) of a computer. I remember there was once an indispensable Everest program for displaying detailed PC information, which had no equal. And then, as I understand it, the owners of the utility changed and an updated program appeared with the name AIDA64. As before, as now, the program displays the most detailed information about each piece of hardware on your computer. Let's download the software from http://www.aida64.ru/download
The program will download, then install it. First, select the language and then press Next all the time. If you left everything as default, the AIDA64 shortcut will appear on the desktop.
We open it and a window will immediately pop up, where we will be warned about the 30-day free version of the program. Here you can enter the license key, if available.
If we press the cross, the program will be incomplete; if we enter the key, the utility will work legally and fully. Below in the spoiler you can find the keys for AIDA64 v4.60.3100 - 5.50.3600
Just take a closer look at how much detailed information you can view for each computer device.
This utility is one of the best in its field, so I advise you to use it. By the way, you can find out the temperature of every part of the computer in it. To do this, go to the "Computer" - "Sensors" section. You can also test some PC devices; to do this, go to the bottom section “Test”.
I hope the instructions were useful to you. Thank you for your attention!
Good day! There are already quite a lot of notes on this blog that help you run various Android applications on your computer. The most popular question concerns system requirements - many simply do not know how to look at the characteristics of the computer and compare them with the table of emulator requirements. In today’s post, we will analyze all these gaps in knowledge and answer the pressing question “How to find out the system requirements of your computer.”
Quite often there is a need to find out what is inside your iron friend (I mean a computer or laptop), but to disassemble and look into it giblets no particular desire. Of course, opening the computer and looking at what is written on the components is the surest way, but it is not suitable for everyone and we will not consider it - we will use software methods.
How to find out the characteristics of your computer or laptop without disassembling it? - very simple, no matter how system administrators and Windows reinstallation specialists convince you otherwise. Today we will look at options using standard Windows tools, however, the information on the video card is not always complete, so we will dilute it a little with third-party software to determine the parameters of your computer.
How to find out the characteristics of your computer using standard means
We can look at the characteristics of a computer on any version of Windows with built-in utilities and tools. These variations are good because they do not require the installation of third-party programs and generally display comprehensive information (which in most cases will be sufficient).
Method 1. We get information from “Computer Properties”
The easiest way to find out the general tactical and technical characteristics of a computer is the “Properties” window, which can be opened by right-clicking on the “Computer” icon.
This window displays information about the version of your operating system and its bit depth. We are more interested in the “System” block, where it says which processor is installed in the system and the amount of random access memory (RAM); unfortunately, information about the video adapter is not displayed here. However, for most users the information presented here will be sufficient.
Quite often a situation arises when the amount of available and used RAM does not match (for example, you noted that out of 4 GB of RAM, only 3.25 are available for use - I will write about this in a detailed note about RAM)
Method 2: Computer information in DirectX
I think everyone is familiar with DirectX - it is a set of APIs for programming. In simple terms, DirectX is needed for the vast majority of computer games, it is part of Windows and allows us to find out information about our computer.
In the good old days, it could be launched from the program folder (like Windows 98 and the like), but now the “DirectX Diagnostic Tool” is called by a command in the “Run” window. Press “Win + R” and enter the command dxdiag
In the window that opens, we can see the processor and the amount of installed RAM in the computer. Similar to the previous method - information about the installed Windows system and its bit capacity are displayed here. (You can also look at the DirectX version - this issue worries many)
Method 3. Device Manager - a lot of useful information
The task manager can tell you a lot about the insides of your computer or laptop (but unfortunately does not provide information about the amount of RAM in the system), below I have attached a screenshot of my device manager and highlighted the most important things with numbers - I will now talk in detail about each of the points:
- In the “Video adapters” section there is our video card (you may have several of them, for example, integrated into the processor and discrete), in my case it is the AMD Radeon HD 5800 Series (Series means that it can be either 5850 or 5870 - this is our answer not particularly satisfied, but for example, such information is quite enough to install drivers)
- Disk devices. This section contains information about the drives installed in your system. It has little to do with system requirements, but in general many are interested in knowing about devices that store your photos, videos and a bunch of other information for years
- Processors. This place collects information about your central processor - their number means the number of threads, but not the cores (although usually the number of cores coincides with the number of threads)
The Device Manager allows you to view all devices installed in the system - it is an indispensable assistant for every user and it would be foolish to ignore it.
So we found out the characteristics of our computer, but we still did not find out the exact information about the video card. There are several more ways to determine iron, but as a rule they duplicate the above and I don’t see much point in talking about them.
How to find out your computer settings using third-party programs
Standard tools are good for everyone, but sometimes it’s annoying - look at one thing here, look at another there... I’m not surprised that specialized applications have appeared that collect all the information about the characteristics of a laptop or computer. We will now briefly talk about them and look at their basic functionality.
Method 1. We look at the computer parameters using AIDA64
You can find out the characteristics of your computer using such a monster as AIDA64. This application provides just a huge amount of useful information about your system - we can use this to our advantage (of course, you need to download the program first)
The application costs money, but there is a trial version for a month - we will have time to find out what is installed on the computer. We are interested in “Summary Information” in the “Computer” section. Here you have both the processor and the amount of RAM. There is information about the motherboard model and, most importantly, in the 3D accelerator line there is an exact match for the ATI Radeon HD 5870 - this is the video card I have installed.
For general development, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with this program in more detail - don’t know how to find out the processor temperature or fan speed? AIDA64 will tell you everything in detail... the application can be used to monitor the system and perform a stress test to evaluate the stability of your computer - a MUST HAVE for everyone!
No need to read! I have written indecently little in this section; it’s even a little embarrassing to use such a program to determine the amount of RAM or identification processor. If you have time, be sure to familiarize yourself with AIDA64 in more detail - you will not be disappointed... probably no third-party application provides so much information about the system.
Method 2. CPU-Z - a small program with great capabilities
One of my favorite programs, created to present information about the central processor, but in fact it can tell you almost everything about your computer and a little more (they have a PC Wizard program - a decent option to find out about the components inside your computer, but it does not work under Windows 10 and has not been updated for a very long time). The current version can always be downloaded from the official website of the program:
The program does not require installation, is lightweight, and is also free - all we have to do is launch it and browse through the tabs in search of the information we need. What is usually written in system requirements for programs? - That's right, processor and RAM...
- CPU tab. The Name line contains the name of the processor installed in the system (in my case, Intel Core i5 3470). Here we can find out his tech. process, amount of cache memory and much, much other useful information about your CPU.
- Memory tab. In general, there is nothing to tell here. The Type line is the type of your RAM, and Size is the size... it couldn’t be simpler!
Thus, we have learned the basic computer parameters that affect performance in all applications - but the information is not exhaustive, so we move on.
It is very important to know the model of the motherboard and video card, so that when reinstalling the system we can download the latest versions of drivers for this type of device. This little program also does a great job with this, so let’s not drag the cat into inevitability and let’s go through the other tabs:
- Mainboard tab. Sufficiently detailed information about your motherboard - in my case it is clear that I have an ASUS P8H67 (you can safely google it and go to the official website for downloads)
- Graphics tab. Not very detailed information about the video card, but unlike the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, the amount of graphics memory was determined quite correctly.
CPU-Z has a very useful function that shows RAM broken down by slot (i.e. you can see which module is inserted into which slot) - this is very helpful when upgrading and selecting a die for your PC or laptop.
As you can see, CPU-Z has no problems viewing the characteristics of a computer on Windows 10. We can safely recommend adding the best programs or a sort of “gentleman’s set of software”.
Method 3. Piriform Speccy - from the developers of the legendary CCleaner
The best program for viewing computer characteristics is Piriform Spessy, the authors of the much-loved Ccleaner utility. You can download the application on the official website - I did not use the paid version, the free version allows you to find out the computer parameters, but we don’t need anything more...
All the program can do is collect information about our PC and show it to you in an easy-to-read form. The operating system, the central processor, the motherboard - all this is conveniently laid out and there are no difficulties in finding the right item. This is what a highly specialized program means - nothing superfluous, everything is strictly on topic (even the motherboard socket shows).
In general, there is a lot of related information, such as SMART of the hard drive or those. CPU process. Speccy will tell you in as much detail as possible about the rich inner world your computer... on the one hand, this is very good, but on the other hand, you are simply bombarded with a huge flow of information and unfamiliar terms, the meaning of which you will have to look for information on yourself.
Computer settings. Results.
I think it’s worth wrapping up slowly - there is enough information and some conclusions can be drawn. We learned how to view the characteristics of a computer in several ways:
- Built-in utilities
- Third party programs
We found out what their advantages and disadvantages are and you can decide for yourself which method is right for you. In general, information about a computer can be collected using Windows, but you must agree that specialized software is more convenient and functional...
P.S. You can always disassemble the computer and look at the markings on the components, but I do not recommend doing this to an inexperienced user. You can find out the characteristics of your computer in safe and less destructive ways.
My computer settings: Processor – Intel Core i5 3470 / 24 gigabytes of RAM / 120 gigabytes SSD storage for the system / ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB video card
Why do you think you might need to find out information about a computer, or rather about its internals? In my opinion, for different cases. Here are some of them:
After installing Windows, some devices were not detected by the system, and you need to find drivers for them;
If you need a complete description of your computer (or many computers) for your job responsibilities in any organization;
You just want to know your hardware in as much detail as possible - what is installed in your computer.
These are just a few options in which you may need to find out information about the computer, or more precisely, about the hardware installed in the computer. Therefore, in today’s article I will talk about ways to find out the full characteristics of your computer using the specialized program Aida64.
To begin with, I will describe in a little more detail the cases described above when you may need the full characteristics of your computer.
If you installed a new Windows system (you did not update the old version, but performed a clean installation), then the system will probably not immediately detect all the hardware that is installed on your computer, since some devices may not have drivers. A driver is a program that controls a device, without which the device cannot work as it should. And since the devices are not defined, you may not know which drivers to look for and install! And in this case, a program for determining the full characteristics of a computer can help out. In Windows, it is possible to find out information about the computer, but only those devices for which drivers are already installed will be displayed. And if there are no drivers, it’s a bummer :)
If you work, for example, as a system administrator in a company, then you most likely need to know the full characteristics of each computer. I also once worked in the IT department of a technical school and from time to time I needed to carry out an inventory of equipment in computer classrooms. In such cases, programs that showed complete information about the computer - installed equipment, programs and sometimes even serial numbers - came to my rescue!
Well, in the end, you can simply, out of curiosity, see what’s on your computer in as much detail as possible, and get to know your hardware. Because Windows does not provide such detailed information about the computer, unlike third-party programs designed for these purposes. For example, you bought a brand new laptop and want to know in detail what hardware is inside, because the stickers contain only superficial information about the computer - about the most basic devices (usually the processor, RAM, video adapter and hard drive).
By the way, if you are a beginner and don’t yet know your way around computer hardware, and don’t understand what device is used for what, then I recommend that you read this article:
So, let's move on to the main thing - how to find out the full characteristics of your computer. To begin with, I will still show you how to view the characteristics of your computer using built-in tools, despite the paucity of information provided in this way. Maybe it will be useful to someone.
How to find out information about a computer using built-in Windows tools?
The most basic information about your computer is shown in the System section of Windows (starting with Windows 7). You need to type “System” in the Windows search, after which you will find the desired application:
In the section that opens, you can find information about the installed edition of Windows, processor, memory, and computer name. As you can see, there is little information here...
You can also find out some information about your hardware in a Windows utility called “Device Manager”.
The window will list by category all the equipment that is already installed in the system (only those devices for which drivers are installed!). If the device does not have drivers, it will appear as a question mark and will be located in the “Unknown Devices” category. And if there are any problems with the device, then a yellow exclamation mark will be located next to it.
In order to get more detailed information about a device, you need to right-click on the desired device and select “Properties”:
And another way to get information about your hardware using built-in Windows tools is to use the “System Information” utility (this is what you type in the search). Here, in the “Components” category, computer devices are displayed with more detailed information than in the utilities listed above:
But, again, if you do not have drivers installed for some devices, then these devices will not be recognized in this program.
As a result, all of the above methods can only help if you already have drivers installed for all devices in Windows. If this is not the case, or if you need a more detailed description of your computer, then third-party specialized programs for identifying hardware will help you.
Find out the full characteristics of your computer using the Aida64 program!
In order to find out what hardware is in your computer, there are a large number of third-party programs, both paid and free. For example: Aida64, Spessy, Sysinfo, Astra32, PC Wizard.
The best, in my opinion, of all the programs in this category is “Aida64” (previously called “Everest”). The program determines the full characteristics of the computer, shows installed drivers and software, allows you to perform hardware tests, check the temperatures of some devices, create and download reports in files. The program has only one drawback - it is paid and the simple version for home use currently costs 1887.60 rubles!
However, a 30-day trial period is given, which will be enough for some. If you constantly need to monitor information about your computer (for example, if you need it for work), then 30 days, of course, is not enough. And if you just find out which devices are not detected by the system in order to download the appropriate drivers, then 30 days will be enough.
First, you need to download the program, preferably from the official website:
Aida64russia.ru
Click on the download button next to the Aida64 Extreme version:
The program will begin downloading (file size is about 15 MB).
Run the downloaded file and begin the installation.
In the first window, select the language and click “OK”:
We accept the license agreement and click “Next”:
In the following steps, we are asked to select the installation path and folder name in the Start menu. It's best to leave everything as default:
And finally, you can select additional options - placing the program icon on the desktop and in the Start menu. Check what you need and click “Next”:
In the last window, check “Run Aida64 Extreme” and click “Finish”:
When the program starts, you will immediately see a list of categories of computer devices (for example, “Motherboard”, “Display”, “Multimedia”):
The program couldn't be easier to use. All device categories, as well as additional program features, are located on the left side of the window. Just open the desired category and highlight the item you are interested in. For example, in the “Computer” category you can see summary information about all the main devices of the computer:
In the “Motherboard” category, you can get detailed information about the computer processor, motherboard, RAM and chipset (chips on the motherboard that are responsible for the interconnection and joint operation of the processor, RAM, and input/output devices):
To be honest, I have never found more detailed information about the characteristics of my computer in any other similar program :)
What information is contained in each of the above categories:
The remaining tabs of the program contain information about software and drivers. These include the following categories:
In general, I never used the “Configuration”, “Databases”, “Test”, “Server”, “DirectX” and “Operating System” sections. Haven't needed it yet :)
For convenience, those items in the program that you use most often can be added to the “Favorites” section, so that later you can see only what you need in the list! It's very easy to do. Right-click on the desired item and select “Add to favorites list”:
Now, in order to see what is in your Favorites, open the “Favorites” tab on the left side of the window:
Another feature that may be useful is the creation of hardware reports, from which you can find out the necessary information about your computer. In the reports, the data is displayed conveniently for viewing and this report can be transferred to someone in the same convenient form.
In order to create a report, right-click on the desired item and select “Quick report”, then select the report generation option you need from the list (the most convenient way, in my opinion, is HTML):
In a few seconds, a report will be generated on the characteristics of the computer, which you can save to a file or immediately send to someone via E-Mail (see the buttons marked in the image below):
And another useful feature of the program is testing the main equipment: HDD, video adapter, monitor, RAM and operating system stability. All these tests are available in the "Tools" menu:
Here is such a useful and not at all difficult program for a beginner, through which anyone can find out the full characteristics of their computer/laptop. And if some drivers are not installed on the system, then such a program can help you out, since it will mark those devices for which the necessary drivers are not found in the system!
In one of the subsequent articles, I want to talk about a similar program that shows very detailed information about the computer (its hardware and programs) and is distributed free of charge for home use:
True, I still like Aida64 better, because it gives more information about the computer and is somehow more convenient to use :)
Have a nice day! See you in other articles;)
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