Best Free Software
Sysgauge
Free system-monitoring tools tend to focus on one job, such as checking hard-drive usage or alerting you when your processor is about to blow a gasket. Sysgauge juggles both these tasks – and also monitors your RAM, installed programs, operating system, USB ports, router and even other PCS on your network. It displays real-time measurements on graphs, then offers ratings and warnings to help you make sense of the numbers. All from a small, easy-to-use program that doesn’t cost a penny.
What’s the catch? Honestly, there isn’t one. It can even spell ‘gauge’ correctly. It can’t quite whip out a screwdriver and fix your PC, but it can switch it off and on again, which some may argue is the main job of IT support anyway (not that you’d catch me saying such a thing). It’s up to you to configure this warning system, by setting Sysgauge to, for example, play a sound or restart your PC when a certain counter crosses a chosen threshold. The instructions are explained clearly on the web page.
You can export data as a spreadsheet (Excel or CSV), as well as PDF, plain text and HTML – all for free. There’s even an interval export option that saves data at set times (say, every 10 minutes), then automatically emails you the files.
The program does need installing but the process is quick and junk-free. Click the appropriate Download button for your PC ( 32bit or 64bit), then save and run the installer. The program takes up just 14.3MB (64bit version). Sysgauge launched in January 2017 and has already released several updates, so we expect even more options to be added soon. To save a report, click Monitor, Save Report, then choose an export format and mode. To set up automatic reports at intervals, click Options, then Advanced.