How do I get the CPU speed and total physical ram in C#?

Question

I need a simple way of checking how much ram and fast the CPU of the host PC is. I tried WMI however the code I'm using

 private long getCPU()
 {
    ManagementClass mObject = new ManagementClass("Win32_Processor");
    mObject.Get();
    return (long)mObject.Properties["MaxClockSpeed"].Value;

 }

Throws a null reference exception. Furthermore, WMI queries are a bit slow and I need to make a few to get all the specs. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

You should use PerformanceCounter class in System.Diagnostics

PerformanceCounter cpuCounter;
PerformanceCounter ramCounter;

cpuCounter = new PerformanceCounter();

cpuCounter.CategoryName = "Processor";
cpuCounter.CounterName = "% Processor Time";
cpuCounter.InstanceName = "_Total";

ramCounter = new PerformanceCounter("Memory", "Available MBytes");


public string getCurrentCpuUsage(){
            cpuCounter.NextValue()+"%";
}

public string getAvailableRAM(){
            ramCounter.NextValue()+"MB";
}

Answer 2

http://dotnet-snippets.com/dns/get-the-cpu-speed-in-mhz-SID575.aspx

using System.Management;

public uint CPUSpeed()
{
  ManagementObject Mo = new ManagementObject("Win32_Processor.DeviceID='CPU0'");
  uint sp = (uint)(Mo["CurrentClockSpeed"]);
  Mo.Dispose();
  return sp;
}

RAM can be found in this SO question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/105031/c-how-do-you-get-total-amount-of-ram-the-computer-has

Answer 3

Much about the processor including its speed in Mhz is available under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor

I'm running 2 Win7x64 pcs and for some reason the WMI query shows a vague number the first time I run the code and the correct processor speed the second time I run it?

When it comes to performance counters, I did work a LOT with the network counters and got in accurate results and eventually had to find a better solution, so I dont trust them!