So you recently bought a new PC and you want to make sure that your PC contains the components that they are supposed to. So the question is, how do you go about checking it yourself? If you’re interested in learning how to see what kind of hardware you have under the hood, check out our guide below.
Quick And Easy
If you just want a very brief summary on how to check the basic specs of your PC, such as which version of Windows you’re running, what kind of processor you have, and how much RAM you have, then this will be a quick and easy method of finding out.
- On your desktop, right click “This PC”
- Select Properties
- The highlighted section will show you all the basic information about your PC
This is actually a good way to check if there is something wrong with your PC and certain components. Not too long ago, I discovered that my PC seemed to be running slower than normal and was struggling with multitasking. Upon checking Task Manager, I realized that a lot of memory was being consumed for tasks that normally would not need that much memory.
Thinking it was a RAM problem, went through the process above and discovered that based on the information, my PC was only detecting that I had 4GB of RAM instead of 8GB, leading me to conclude that one of my RAM sticks had failed me. Swapping it out for a new one fixed the problem.
While not exactly designed to be a diagnostic tool, it certainly did help make the troubleshooting process a lot faster.
A More Detailed Look
If you want a more detailed look at your PC’s hardware, here’s how you can go about doing it.
- Open the Start Menu and type “Device Manager”
- Launch the app
- This app will show you all the components of your PC. This covers not just components inside of your PC, but also devices that are connected to it, like monitors and keyboards
- Click on any of the arrows next to the category to expand on it
Once again, similar to the Quick and Easy method outlined above, using Device Manager can also be a good way of troubleshooting some problems with your PC. For example, if you recently installed a new graphics card but it isn’t showing up under Display Adapters, then perhaps you did not install it properly which is why it isn’t being detected.
You can also use Device Manager to install driver updates and also to disable certain components and reinstall them if they’re not working properly.
Filed in . Read more about Windows and Windows 10.