Hello,
I regularly use 'finnix' as a bootable CD to get a root command prompt with lots of utilities for system maintainence. This time the latest version 101 was downloaded and burned. Along with the usual boot time utilities, I found a nice option called 'Hardware Detection Tool'. This is very useful to get details about your motherboard, chips, devices etc. without opening your machine. Very quick and handy.
So..... go ahead and try it out.