Monitoring various aspects of your hardware is too time consuming. As such, most people will deeply appreciate HWMonitor’s capabilities to monitor your hardware levels in a simple package.
Installation & Requirements
The setup process is quite simple and completes very fast. The application also offers a portable utility that you can run without installing the software. The supported operating systems are Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.
Interface
Every time you start the application it will automatically collect your data and display various aspects about your hardware. Everything is done in real time so you can expect different results when you look at the application. The free version of the application has limited hardware capabilities and will only showcase some very basic stuff so you should keep that in mind.
The information that will be available to you will be presented in the main interface window. There are various aspects like Assembly temperatures, voltage for your battery, charger capacities and more. The data is shown in three tabs, each representing a different value. The first one is for the current value, which changes in real time, and the other two are for the minimum and maximum values that each aspect or module can display.
You can reset the minimum and maximum values by going in the View tab of the top toolbar and choosing the respective option. The application will then automatically retrieve the values again and display them. From the same tab you can also choose to display or hide the status bar.
Regarding your data, you have two options to save them. You can either save the Monitoring data or the SMBus data. Both are stored in text files that you can name and save anywhere in your computer. Both options are accessed from the File tab of the toolbar simply by clicking on them. In the Tools section you can check for new updates or visit one of the affiliate websites of the application in order to download their programs and try them out for yourself. For example, in the testing of this software I was prompted to try two programs, one for BIOS updates and one for driver updates. Lastly, the Help section simply provides information about the driver version and the software version that you are currently using as well as a link for the Pro version of HWMonitor.
Pros
-Fast installation
-Portable mode
-Clean interface with all the values presented in a clear way
-Minimal user input required
Cons
-Limited options in the free version
Conclusion
HWMonitor is an extremely useful utility but comes with its limitations. If you are not ready to shell out money for the Pro version you should still download the application if only to check how it works and how everything is presented so that you can make your choice for the paid version.
