12 free utilities that can give you more control over your PC – PCWorld

Category: Free Software

Okay, so lets say youve run your Belarc report and installed HWInfo. You know what youre working with, but how do you know how your computer will perform under a heavy load? There are dozens of stress-testing utilities out there, but Prime95 and MemTest86+ are two stalwarts. Prime95 uses your processor to calculate extremely large prime numbers, and MemTest86+ taxes your RAM with several different memory-straining algorithms. If youve got a flaw in your setup, these utilities will smoke it out. Hopefully, the smoke in this situation is figurative.

MemTest86+ is especially useful because you can boot to it, so if you suspect a memory problem is making Windows unstable, you can bypass the operating system entirely and test the hardware from the BIOS level.

Also, if you feel like contributing to a larger cause, Prime95 is part of GIMPS, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. There are cash prizes for using Prime95 to discover new Mersenne primes!

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12 free utilities that can give you more control over your PC - PCWorld

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May 1st, 2017
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