OK… something happened to your computer and/or you need its specs. But the writing has worn off those tags, or they’ve come off. What do you do?
You have “Speccy” from Piriform (the same folks who brought you CCleaner, Recuva and Defraggler).
“Isn't this information in Windows?
Yes and no. Some of the basic information can be found by right-clicking My Computer and then clicking Properties. The General tab lists some statistics, and the Device Manager on the Hardware tab lists all of the hardware you've got installed. But it misses out lots of information that you need.
Speccy will give you detailed statistics on every piece of hardware in your computer. Including CPU, Motherboard, RAM, Graphics Cards, Hard Disks, Optical Drives, Audio support. Additionally Speccy adds the temperatures of your different components, so you can easily see if there's a problem!” -http://www.piriform.com/speccy
It’s very small. It will give you a total analysis of your components – names, software and drives, real time temperatures of the CPU and GPU and network performance. You can also harvest info on your memory modules, processor I.D. and check the health of your SSD’s from the S.M.A.R.T. disk statuses.
“[Also] if you need to add more memory to your system, for example, you can check how many memory slots your computer has and what memory's already installed. Then you can go out and buy the right type of memory to add on or replace what you've already got.
If you're going to be selling your PC, you can use Speccy to quickly list out the components. Or, if you're buying a PC, you can use Speccy to check that the computer has what the label says it has.” – ibid
It gets better: Speccy can store the results as a ‘snapshot’, an XML or a text file to be viewed afterwards, or to be emailed to someone helping you fix things. You can use the app to take snapshots before and after changes made to your system to compare performance.
I advise printing out a hard copy every time you change a component.
*edit:
It’s only missing being downloaded as a portable app.
Portable app here: http://www.piriform.com/speccy/builds
Thanks, Wiz... I missed that one.
Download link: http://www.piriform.com/speccy [the green button at the bottom of the page]
Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/review-speccy-system-information-tool/6587?tag=nl.e064&s_cid=e064