HWiNFO32

There are times when you need to know in detail what hardware components your computer has. Maybe you want to try a brand new software or operating system and you want to make sure it will run smoothly. Or maybe your computer seems a little slow and you would like to know which components need replacing. You may also want to sell your PC and buy a new one and you need to set a price for it, which again requires knowing what components are inside the case. There are dozens situations when you need to know the hardware specs of your PC.

Opening the case and looking inside may not be very helpful, because a lot of components look the same. You could use the System Information application, included in Windows, but this won't be of much help, as it lacks a lot of features and the information presented there may not be enough. A better solution would be using a software specially designed for this, like HWiNFO32. It's a software that shows complete information about all the hardware components of a computer. Besides that, it allows benchmarking components, to see which one slows the system down.

The program has a straightforward installation process, which completes very fast. The program can run on most versions of Microsoft Windows, starting with XP.

The interface is well organized into two tabs, the right one displaying the component for which the information will be shown and the right one displaying the actual information. One can use the well known drop down menu, but can also take advantage of the toolbar, which contains graphical buttons for most of the program's tasks.

Besides showing complete information for each of the system's components, HWiNFO32 is also able to monitor the temperature of the hard disk, CPU and graphical processor using sensors. Besides that, it can display the speed of all the coolers inside the case.

HWiNFO32 allows creating a report in various formats, containing information about the entire system. It also allows comparing the benchmark results with other configurations.