How in the Tech

Displaying your PC hardware details with Speccy

By Adam Myers ⋅ April 1, 2010 ⋅ Tags: System Administration

If you find yourself having to support more than a handful of computers you quite likely struggle in keeping all the variations of hardware straight. When the symptoms and troubleshooting of a problem points to failing system memory – how easily can you recall whether the memory type is DDR2 or DDR3? For me it’s quite a challenge – it’s not something Windows publishes very well. Many years ago, I could tell you what memory type corresponded to what motherboard chipset or processor. I knew the front-side bus speed and from that, the speed of the memory necessary. Today, and it’s probably just a sign of being older and a different alignment of professional priorities, it’s a disaster to keep organized in my head.

Speccy is a handy Windows utility that can uncover all the system specifications of a running PC by the same developers of CCleaner, Piriform. Most know that a right-click on My Computer will display things such as the processor speed or amount of memory installed – but it is of extremely limited use for most situations.  Short of tearing open the computer case, and that’s assuming you are even local to the computer in question, Speccy is the simplest way to unearth the details of the hardware installed.

Initial execution provides a quick summary of the PC.

The details provided by Speccy are really shown when you dig a bit deeper. Here I can see things such as the manufacturer, part number, serial number, and even the current frequency.

Additionally, Speccy is able to display other tidbits such as the SMART information from your hard drive and system temperatures.

Finally, Speccy is completely free and if that wasn’t enticing enough the software is portable meaning it requires no installation – a perfect program that belongs on everyone’s emergency repair USB memory stick.

Download Speccy