How to know the characteristics of my pc in windows and linux

Knowing the characteristics of my PC is something that we consider essential for any user who is at least interested in taking care of and knowing their computer. At Professional Review we do not conceive the fact that a user does not even know their processor, something so important and basic to know the possibilities and power of their equipment.

Index of contents

So in this tutorial we will see how to know all or at least the main characteristics of our PC in both Windows and Linux. For this we will use both the solutions that the operating systems themselves incorporate, as well as certain very useful free programs that are on the network. So, let's get started.

What is the use of knowing the characteristics of my PC?

Well, it will be extremely useful to us, it is not only about knowing the brand and model of our components, but going further and investigating on our own what are the technical characteristics of each of these components.

In this way we can even compare them with other computers, or have a rough idea of ​​the performance of our PC, for example, if we want to install a certain game and we are not sure if it will run correctly on it, or if we are going to install a program quite demanding. Looking at its characteristics, we open a wide range of information available on the Internet, such as our own component analyzes. We only need the key, which is to know these components.

Know the characteristics of my Windows PC

The methods that we are going to use here are available in practically all versions of Windows, of course in version 10, and also in 8, 7, Vista and even XP, both 32 and 64 bits.

With Windows tools

First of all, we are going to start looking for this information using the tools that Windows has at our disposal. If you don't feel like opening different windows with scattered information, we recommend that you go directly to the next section.

Windows basically has 3 ways to know the information on our PC, let's start from the most basic to the most complete:

Windows Properties

It is a window where basically information about CPU, RAM and the Windows version we have will be shown. It is as simple as pressing the keyboard combination " Windows + Pause / Break ".

If we prefer, we can go to "My Computer", right-click on this icon and choose the " Properties " option.

With the DXDIAG tool

DXDiag is the Windows DirectX diagnostic tool, and it gives us a lot of information about our hardware and system. To access it, what we are going to do is press the key combination " Windows + R ", and in the Run tool type " dxdiag " then press Enter.

What news do we have here? Well, in addition to CPU and RAM, in the Screen section we can see what our graphics card is and its specifications. And if we go to Sound, we will also see the connected devices or card that we use. Finally in Entrance, we will have all the peripherals connected to our equipment listed with brands and models.

Windows system information

The third tool is the most complete of all and is called Windows System Information. In it we will have a fairly large list of information about our hardware and software.

To open it, we just have to open the start menu or click on the magnifying glass icon and write " system information ". The problem here is to filter the information that is really useful to us, since there are also many registers of states of each component and things that a priori, will not be useful to us.

Most of the information that interests us we will have in the "Components" section, browsing its different hardware options. Although in " system summary " is where we will have CPU and RAM.

With external tools

The good thing about external tools is that they are exclusively designed for this purpose, that of showing us all the relevant information on the equipment, filtered and perfectly categorized.

AIDA64 Extreme / Engineer

AIDA64 is one of the programs that we use most frequently to collect information about the system and hardware, and to subject our equipment to stress processes. We use the Engineer version, but there are several of them on the creator's official website. Unfortunately this software is paid, although it is offered in a 30-day trial version that will be more than enough to know absolutely all the information on our computer.

Speccy

This program is created by Piriform, like CCleaner, but don't worry, it won't destroy your Windows registry and it 's totally free. It is extremely simple to use and gives us a lot of information about our system. We can download it from this link.

We only have to take one thing into account, and that is that when starting the installation wizard, we must make sure to deactivate the option to install CCleaner together with Speccy. For the rest, we do not have any type of advertising within the program or a paid license.

Know the characteristics of my PC in Linux

One of the Linux systems most used by users is Ubuntu, so it will be the one that we will also use to know all the characteristics of our PC. Specifically we are using version 19.04 64-bit running on a virtual machine.

As before, we are going to make use of the tools that the system itself brings us, and also others installed externally.

With Ubuntu tools

As it could not be otherwise, the most normal way to interact than Linux is through its command terminal and it is precisely where we will go.

sudo lshw | less

With this command we will list all the information related to the hardware of our computer, CPU, memory, network, screen, GPU, etc. In our capture we will not be able to know too much, since we are on a virtualized platform.

We will only have to write the command:

sudo lshw

Or to show the information little by little using pipes

sudo lshw | less

/ Proc / directory

In Linux there is always a saying, everything in the system is files, and this case is no different. The / proc directory is not a directory as such, in fact it doesn't even physically exist. It stores a series of virtual files of the state of the machine and the system that we can even open and read.

Among many others, we can list the information of three main files with the following commands:

cat / proc / meminfo

cat / pro / cpuinfo

car / proc / net

We will be shown information regarding the chosen device. If we want to see the information little by little, we will use the “less” command again after a pipe.

And if we want to see everything that contains the directory, then we will put the following command:

ls / proc /

With external tools

Without a doubt one of the most famous applications for Ubuntu in this field is Hardinfo. It behaves just like applications like Everest or AIDA64, also available for Linux. But we have chosen this one because it is different, and thus explore more options. And for a simple reason, and that is that it is available in the system repositories and we can install it simply and without the need to compile packages. We just have to write in the command terminal:

sudo apt-get install hardinfo

Next, we can directly write " hardinfo " in the console to start the program, or go to the list of applications in graphical mode and open the "system information" application.

The interface is very similar to other Windows programs or the popio Linux, with a list of categorized elements and easy to explore. Again, being a virtualized system for our example, we do not have all the real information of the equipment, but in your case it will be different and you have it physically installed.

Conclusion and links of interest

These are the easiest ways to know the characteristics of my PC or the need to pay absolutely nothing and under the two main platforms, Windows and Linux. In this way, we will know in depth the hardware of our equipment and relevant information about drivers and the system itself.

Now we leave you with some interesting tutorials for you to expand your knowledge

If you have any questions or know of a better application than the ones we have shown, leave us a comment below to be able to expand this article with your knowledge.