Need to
Know what's inside your Windows computer?
Getting the Hardware listing
with simple tools
- click on the Start Menu
- Then Click on the button that says Run
- In the Run Box, type in DxDiag
- Then Hit enter or Ok.
- If you are asked if you want to verify digital signatures,
click Yes
- You should now have something like the following screen up.
In here: you will need to note
- Processor : this
will tell you what type of chip your computer runs on
- Memory
: this will
tell you how much RAM you have
Next
- Click on display or
display 1
- You should now have something like what follows up on the
screen
In here: you will need to note
- Name : The name
will tell you the name of your video card
- Manufacturer : Looking
here will tell you who made the card
- Chip Type : This
line will tell you more about the kind of chip used to power your
graphics
- Total Memory : How much Video Ram your card has
Next
- Click on the tab that says Sound
- You should now have something like what follows
In here all you need to note is
- Name : This
should tell you who made the sound card.
- Provider : If the
name is blank, this should tell you who made the card.
Now that we know the basics about our computer, lets go get some tools
that will tell us more.
- First thing when we get a tad more advanced is to get a
reliable tool. That tool is CPUZ
- Go ahead and download CPUZ and open it up. ( I suggest
C:\cpuz for the folder)
- Go to the folder and open up the CPUZ Icon.
- Depending on what proceesor you have depends on the screen
you get.
- Athlon64
- In the Athlon64 screen we have several different items
to look at
- Name: The
type of Athlon64 you have
- Codename: The
name the chip was developed under
- Package: If
you are looking to upgrade, this will tell you which socket you have
- Core Speed: This
is the speed of the Athlon64
- HTT: This is
the base speed clock that talks to the rest of the system.
- AthlonXp
- In the AthlonXp we see some different items here
- The biggest difference is the clock section
- The FSB speed is recorded
- as well as the actual Bus Speed
- Intel Pentium4
- Intels screen looks a lot like the AthlonXp screen
- Biggest difference here is the Cache section
- Moving on with CPUZ let's go to the Cache tab
- we should see something like the following
- CPUZ CACHE
- The cache tells us more about the memory in use with
the processor
- After that, lets click on MainBoard
- CPUZ Mainboard
- Providing you have a standarized motherboard, you can
find out who made the motherboard
- This will also tell you which chipsets you are using
- The final Item in CPUZ is the MEMORY
- CPUZ MEMORY
- CPUZ Memory tells you what speed your memory moves at
as well as the timings
- Remember, the lower the time the better.
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