Looking for that Free Program to test your Rig?
There are many programs we use on a daily basis. Of which, are free! These programs are useful for hardware testing and monitoring, and malicious software protection.
Our top 10 must have FREE programs:
Avast! Free Anti-Virus Protection
avast! Free Antivirus often outperforms competitors´ paid-for products in independent tests, leading in both security features and scanning speed. In fact, AV-Comparatives.org rated avast! 5.1 the fastest out of 20 antivirus programs!
Having antivirus protection is critical and, fortunately, easier than ever. Download now and in just a few minutes you’ll be enjoying the peace of mind that comes from having the best and fastest online protection available.
http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download
Avg Free Anti-Virus Protection
Computer and internet use is an integral and growing part of our everyday lives. Every aspect of our lives is accessible electronically, which brings considerable benefit, as well as considerable risk. Our role is to shield you from potential dangers by providing powerful, easy-to-use protection that works in the background and allows you to go online with confidence.As the nature of threats continues to evolve, so too must the nature of protection. That’s why AVG uses the latest technology developed by world-renowned security experts to provide real-time defenses against real-time threats. With AVG you can surf, shop, bank, download files, chat, network and email safely and confidently, knowing that your personal information will not be stolen or misused.
http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage
CoreTemp
Core Temp is a compact, no fuss, small footprint, yet powerful program to monitor processor temperature and other vital information.What makes Core Temp unique is the way it works. It is capable of displaying a temperature of each individual core of every processor in your system!You can see temperature fluctuations in real time with varying workloads. Core Temp is also motherboard agnostic.
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
Speedfan
SpeedFan is a program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info and show hard disk temperatures. SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on some hardware (but this should be considered a bonus feature). SpeedFan can access digital temperature
sensors and can change fan speeds accordingly, thus reducing noise.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
Seatools
SeaTools is a comprehensive, easy-to-use diagnostic tool that helps you quickly determine the condition of the disk drive in your external hard drive, desktop or laptop computer. It includes several tests that will examine the physical media on your Seagate or Maxtor disk drive and any other non-Seagate disk drive.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools
Hitachi Drive Fitness Test
The Drive Fitness Test (DFT) quickly and reliably tests SCSI, IDE and SATA drives. The DFT analyze function performs read tests without overwriting customer data. (Note: other DFT restoration utilities may overwrite data.)
http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/#DFT
Western Digital Lifeguard Diagnostic Tools
The Data Lifeguard Diagnostic Tools are used primarily for determining the physical condition of your hard drive. If you are having computer problems which you suspect are hard drive related, you can test your drive with this tool. This diagnostic utility is designed for hard drives larger than 8.4 GB with the model number starting with WDxxx. (Compatible with Western Digital Drives only)
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?lang=en
Memtest86
Memtest86 is a thorough, stand alone memory test for x86 architecture computers. BIOS based memory tests are a quick, cursory check and often miss many of the failures that are detected by Memtest86. Available to boot from a disc or In Windows Operating System.
Prime 95
Over the years, Prime95 has become extremely popular among PC enthusiasts and overclockers as a stability testing utility. It includes a “Torture Test” mode designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors in order to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. This is important because each iteration of the Lucas-Lehmer depends on the previous one; if one iteration is incorrect, so will be the entire primality test.
The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast fourier transform (FFT) size. Three pre-set configurations are available: Small FFTs and In-place FFTs, and Blend. Small and In-place modes primarily test the FPU and the caches of the CPU, whereas the Blend mode tests everything, including the memory.
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/
Kill Disk
Powerful and compact software that allows you to destroy all data on hard disks, USB drives and floppy disks completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It’s a hard drive and partition eraser utility.
