Most systems administrators who deal directly with hardware have in their software kit at least one general system diagnostics or system reporting tool. Such tools produce a manifest of installed hardware and system settings, including spot measurements like component temperatures (if they're available).
Lavalys, Inc. has created such a tool, a program called Everest. The company offered a free Home Edition (Version 2.20) of Everest, with some of the more professional-level features stripped out, until late last year, and now has also discontinued support for the Home Edition. (The company is concentrating on selling the professional version of the product.)
However, copies of the free 2.20 release are still available through download sites like MajorGeeks.com.
The free version of is worth having on hand, if only as a gateway product to the full professional version. Features in both the free and commercial versions include:
- Support for a variety of on-board sensors, which provide details about motherboard, CPU and drive temperatures, fan speeds, and system voltages;
- Reporting on motherboard BIOS IDs, clock speeds, chipset details, memory speeds and types, and feature compatibility information;
- SMART statistics for storage devices that support the SMART standard.
- ASPI driver data (if an ASPI driver is present);
- DirectX information and feature details about the installed display driver;
- Device data, including whether or not specific devices support features like bus mastering.
All the information gathered through the program can be exported in HTML or plain-text reports. The program also has stability options that, for instance, would allow you to disable certain low-level operations that may cause the program to lock up if used with incompatible devices.
About the author: Serdar Yegulalp is editor of Windows Insight. Check it out for the latest advice and musings on the world of Windows network administrators. He is also the author of the book Windows Server Undocumented Solutions.
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