SiSoftware Sandra (the System Analyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means "defender", "helper of mankind". We think that's quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what's really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCIe, ODBC Connections, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

  • Benchmark UI Change: Select Multi-Threading, Multi-Core, Single-Thread

While it was always possible in Sandra to disable hyper-threading (HT) to use only physical cores/modules or disable multi-core (MC) to use only sockets/packages or just 1 thread - by using Options - we decided to make it easier to use.

So now you can test either MT, MC, ST - which can be useful on processors that use Turbo/dynamic overclocking and can boost fewer threads to higher speeds.

You can also run on all APs (application processors) - but not the BSP (boot processor, aka thread 0) just in case the BSP causes AP threads to wait for it to finish and thus delay the completion of the test (even now there are some problematic systems).

Single-thread will use an AP not the BSP as generally the BSP is loaded with other tasks (e.g. interrupts).

Note: Sandra uses its own scheduler - thus does not depend on Windows to schedule the threads on specific socket/core (and perhaps park the rest). NUMA is also fully supported and the right NUMA node will be selected as appropriate for the package/core the thread should run on.

General Sandra Information

Here are the version types, in line with industry standards:

  • Sandra Lite (free for personal/educational use - no nag screens, time limit, etc.)
  • Sandra Advanced (for OEMs)
  • Sandra Professional (commercial)
  • Sandra Engineer (commercially exploitabile)
  • Sandra Enterprise (commercial)
  • Sandra Legacy (home enthusiast)

List of SiSoftware Sandra Modules:

  • System Summary
  • Mainboard/Chipset/System Monitors Info
  • CPU/BIOS Info
  • APM & ACPI (Advanced Power Management) Info
  • PCI(e), AGP, CardBus, PCMCIA bus and devices Info
  • Video Information (monitor, card, video bios, caps, etc.)
  • OpenGL Information
  • DirectX (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound (3D), DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput) Info
  • Keyboard Info
  • Mouse Info
  • Sound Card (wave, midi, aux, mix) Info
  • MCI Devices (mpeg, avi, seq, vcr, video-disc, wave) Info
  • Joystick Info
  • Printers Info
  • Windows Memory Info
  • Windows Info
  • Font (Raster, Vector, TrueType, OpenType) Information
  • Modem/ISDN TA Information
  • Network Information
  • IP Network Information
  • WinSock & Internet Security Information
  • Drives Information (Removable Hard Disks, CD-ROM/DVD, RamDrives, etc.)
  • Ports (Serial/Parallel) Info
  • Remote Access Service Connections (Dial-Up, Internet)
  • OLE objects/servers Info
  • Processes (Tasks) & Threads Info
  • Modules (DLL, DRV) Info
  • Services & Device Drivers (SYS) Info
  • SCSI Information
  • ATA/ATAPI Information
  • Data Sources Information
  • CMOS/RTC Information
  • Smart Card & SIM Card Information
  • CPU Arithmetic Benchmark (MP/MT support)
  • CPU Multi-Media Benchmark (including MMX, MMX Enh, 3DNow!, 3DNow! Enh, SSE(2)) (MP/MT support)
  • File System (Removable, Hard Disks, Network, RamDrives) Benchmark
  • Removable Storage/Flash Benchmark
  • CD-ROM/DVD Benchmark
  • Memory Bandwidth Benchmark (MP/MT support)
  • Cache & Memory Bandwidth Benchmark (MP/MT support)
  • Network/LAN Bandwidth Benchmark
  • Internet/ISP Connection Benchmark
  • Internet/ISP Peerage Benchmark
  • Hardware Interrupts Usage
  • DMA Channel Usage
  • I/O Ports Usage
  • Memory Range Usage
  • Plug & Play Enumerator
  • Hardware registry settings
  • Environment settings
  • Registered File Types
  • Key Applications(web-browser, e-mail, news, anti-virus, firewall, etc.)
  • Installed Applications
  • Installed Programs
  • Start Menu Applications
  • On-disk Programs & Libraries
  • Installed Web Packages(ActiveX, Java classes)
  • System Event Logs
  • Burn-in Wizard(test computer stability)
  • Connect Wizard (connect to remote computers, PDAs, Smart Phones and other devices)
  • Combined Performance Index Wizard (overall computer performance score)
  • Create a Report Wizard (save, print, fax or e-mail in CIM (SMS/DMI), HTML, XML, RPT or TEXT format)
  • Performance Tune-Up Wizard (tune-up computer)
  • Environment Monitor Wizard (temperatures, voltages, fans, CPU power, cooling solution thermal resistance, etc.)
  • WebUpdate Wizard for automatic version updating

What's New

Hardware Support

  • Resolved detection issues with Intel's 14th Gen Core RaptorLake-Refresh (e.g. 14700K(F))
  • Resolved reporting issues with AMD's Gen4 Ryzen (e.g. 7950X-3D)

Software Support

  • Resolved detection issues with tiered Storage Pools (e.g. Windows' Storage Spaces)
  • Updated Official Ranker API for greater reliability

Windows Defender Core Isolation features and Sandra's Kernel Driver

Sandra is compatible with most "Core Isolation" security features and you can have those enabled:

  • Memory Integrity – Compatible, can enable
  • Memory Access Protection – Compatible, can enable
  • Microsoft Vulnerable Driver Blocklist – Kernel driver compatible
  • Kernel-mode Hardware-enforced Stack Protection – Kernel driver not compatible, but software will still run with reduced functionality

"Kernel-mode Hardware-enforced Stack Protection" and Sandra's Kernel Driver

When running Sandra on recent Windows 11 versions and hardware you may receive a pop-up stating that "Sandra.sys (aka the kernel driver) cannot be loaded on this device due to a security feature called 'Hardware-enforced Stack Protection' ".

Microsoft has started to ask Windows users to enable this new security features that may not be compatible with Sandra's kernel driver (Sandra.sys). As this driver must run in kernel space and directly interacts with hardware – as with most other hardware utilities of this type, e.g. game anti-cheats, anti-virus/malware and similar kernel-level software – it cannot be compatible with all features.

While we are working on finding a solution, unfortunately there is no easy or immediate fix for it.

While most of the features will still work without the kernel device driver – its hardware detection functionality is greatly reduced, e.g. CPU/Chipset/Memory data will not be available (e.g. CPU multipliers, memory controller timings, memory modules detection, etc.). You can still run the benchmarks.

For full Sandra functionality, you will need to disable this feature and perhaps re-enable it later if all your other software is compatible with it. While we are working on a solution, unfortunately there is no immediate/easy work-around or fix.