My new roommate has a very old PC. It's a Pentium, but a very early one. I'm trying to figure out what kind without taking the heatsink off. Is there a way to find the speed of a processor without taking the heatsink off and without an internet connection? In "System" it just says "Pentium" and nothing more. He's running Windows 95

Many PCs, even old pentiums, say the CPU speed during bootup on the BIOS screens. Does it say on that one?

If you have a recent version of DirectX installed on the PC, running DXDIAG will tell you the speed.

If you have Microsoft Office installed on the PC, open up Word for Windows, select Help/About, and hit "System Info" (although this is going to depend on the version of Word). On my system that tells me the speed.

There are also speed-test utilities, but I don't have a link to any of them.

Get WCPUID at http://www.h-oda.com/. It tells you everything you could ever want to know about your CPU.

If you cannot download the H.Oda software here's what I would do...

If the heatsink seems glued on, it probably is. This would also indicate to me that it is a boxed processor. Early boxed Pentiums (that don't require a fan) have the speed printed on the side of the heatsink. If there is a fan, there are two clips that hold it to the heatsink. They are diagonal to each other. Pinch them both and lift the fan off the heatsink. Engraved on the inside of the heatsink will be the processor details.

If you cannot or do not want to do this, you can get a general idea of speed based on the ZIF socket. Socket 4 would indicate a Pentium 60 or 66. Socket 5 would generally be home to a Pentium 75-120. Socket 7 would likely be 133 and higher, but 75-120 can also fit.

Thanks guys. I'll try all that the next time he's free. Of course, I just realized what might be the cause of my problem with his computer.

This guy has just moved into my place. I was giving him an ethernet card so he could connect to our network. I wasn't sure how to get drivers for the thing because none of the lan drivers on the OS disc seemed to work. Then I saw the OS was seeing it as something like a PCI controller card.

What is the likelyhood that this card, which I don't seem to have the box or documentation for, is not supported by Win95?

the attached EXE should give you the CPU speed

What is the likelyhood that this card, which I don't seem to have the box or documentation for, is not supported by Win95?

High.

Gotcha. Upgrade time.

Good luck running an OS newer than 95 on a Pentium.

But if you're going to upgrade anyway, toss on Linux, and "cat /proc/cpuinfo". Here's what it says for mine (which has none of the visual clues that robricc mentioned):

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 5
model : 4
model name : Pentium MMX
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 225.513
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
sep_bug : no
f00f_bug : yes
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 mmx
bogomips : 450.56