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I'm going to go ahead and join the folks saying you can't do all this from one app, but, for what it's worth, here are my suggestions for how to achieve your goal for free/cheap:

Hardware Monitoring: First, I'd tend to say that you don't really need this, but if you want it: http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php Speedfan's probably your best bet, yo can configure it to send you an e-mail for events, and it also does pretty good logging and, as an added bonus, it has decent hardware compatibility. The other player is MotherBoardMonitor, but it's basically abandonware now, afaik.

For internet filtering: There's peer guardian (http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/) or, as someone else suggested just use openDNS, the advantage of openDNS is it's very easy, the advantage to PeerGuardian is you can create exceptions.

For internet access: For this, go with almost any modern router, I personally use a WRT54g loaded with DD-WRT, I know I can force it to allow/disallow any given MAC.

For anti-virus: Pretty much any AV out there will let you schedule runs.

For setting hours the computer can be used: easiest way would be to find a computer who's BIOS lets you do that, disadvantage is that you'd need to be physically present to make an exception, or give the child the BIOS password and then change it when you got home. Other disadvantage is that it'd be some finicky research, since not all BIOSes will let you, and you'll have to find out before you buy the machines.

As far as monitoring computer status goes, I'd just install a VNC server on them (http://www.realvnc.com/) if you can't log in, the computer is asleep or off (does it really matter which?) if you can, then the computer is on, and you can see what the kid is doing.

I know this isn't really what you asked for, but afaik there's no one app to do all you want.

ATITOOL

It's not just for ATI. Has a card stressing feature.

Another program to note is something like: speedfan

I can't count how many times a problem was directly caused by high temperatures on the cpu, gpu, etc.

And one more tool which I keep in my toolbox:

Spacemonger

A quick run of it gives you a visual representation of the hard drive. I've fixed several problems by seeing that crap needs to get deleted.

Good luck!

ATITOOL

It's not just for ATI. Has a card stressing feature.

Another program to note is something like: speedfan

I can't count how many times a problem was directly caused by high temperatures on the cpu, gpu, etc.

And one more tool which I keep in my toolbox:

Spacemonger

A quick run of it gives you a visual representation of the hard drive. I've fixed several problems by seeing that crap needs to get deleted.

Good luck!

And check not only that the fans are spinning, but that the heatsinks aren't clogged with dust. I once diagnosed a friends machine and it was so clogged the CPU had underclocked from 2GHz to something like 500 or 700MHz even though the fans were still spinning. CMOS is usually going to make such a problem obvious, but sometimes the machine has to be under load to see the problem clearly.

Obviously there are plenty of other options discussed in the other threads, but if you are going to check this one out, I recommend SpeedFan. Just be aware that sensors can be a bit wonky sometimes (don't assume immediately that the readings are valid -- check how they vary with and without load).

SMART has its uses, and a quick and easy check is to use the program 'speedfan' as this has a built in feature to read AND analyze (requires net connection) your HDD's smart information, By no means the be all and end all, but it is the quickest way I know to identify a failing hard drive.

It can be disabled, but its a total PITA. However, it actually is quite easy to get your drivers signed. The biggest thing is ponying up to Verisign and getting the proper certificate (which I believe runs for about $500).

SpeedFan is one piece of software that has a signed driver. It's not open source, but it is freeware, created by someone in his basement.

http://www.almico.com/sfbetaprogram.php

A windows user who knows what SMART is could go right ahead and download any one of the dozen free tools available. An Ubuntu user who doesn't know what it is isn't going to be helped out a whole lot by it being there.

HD Tune and Speedfan are among the better utils:

http://www.hdtune.com/
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

(excluding already mentioned ones in up-moded replies)

NOD32 - probably least bloated antivirus, I don't notice it on 5 year old PC (even better when you turn off IMON module)

Google Talk (native Windows client) - while it doesn't have all the functionality of Skype (notably landline calling and video)...well, just compare them. Bonus: while Skype and Gtalk are roughly the same, quality-wise, on fast connection, Gtalk wins hands-down on slower ones.

Combined Community Coded Pack (CCCP :P - http://cccp-project.net/ ) - pretty much created because the authors had enough of bloat in other solutions.

CutePDF Writer ( http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp ) - PDF printer, considerably outperforms PDFCreator (from Sourceforge) when creating laaarge documents.

Dorgem, Fwink - light webcam software, both on Surceforge.

Speedfan ( http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php ) - very light temp/fan speed/SMART monitoring app.

Most apps from Slysoft.

Official Last.fm player - quite good considering its download size and RAM usage (and well...basically its running all the time here)

Winrar - for a long time I'd recommend 7zip...but really, Winrar isn't that much heavier, but is...considerably faster than 7zip in decompressing large RAR archives here.

I have to agree wholeheartedly.

At my work, we often have computers come in with 'weird' errors, One of the first checks we do once we get to hardware testing is to read the SMART info. A great tool for this in win32 is called "Speed Fan".

Reallocated sectors can have bad data, Power cycle counts can indicate drive electronics failing. There is so much information provided.

SMART is not an authority, but in my opinion is an invaluable source of data about the drive.

AI65. A Thermal Interrupt is Not Generated when the Current Temperature
is Invalid
Problem: When the DTS (Digital Thermal Sensor) crosses one of its programmed
thresholds it generates an interrupt and logs the event
(IA32_THERM_STATUS MSR (019Ch) bits [9,7]). Due to this erratum, if the
DTS reaches an invalid temperature (as indicated IA32_THERM_STATUS MSR
bit[31]) it does not generate an interrupt even if one of the programmed
thresholds is crossed and the corresponding log bits become set.
Implication: When the temperature reaches an invalid temperature the CPU does not
generate a Thermal interrupt even if a programmed threshold is crossed.
Workaround: None identified.
Status: For the steppings affected, see the Summary Tables of Changes.

I don't see why this is an issue. The Intel Desktop temperature monitor doesn't even work on my E6600, so how can it detect an invalid temperature? In other news, alternative temperature monitor programs (like speedfan)work, while the official intel one does not.

For Windows users, Speedfan lets you do this on nearly every desktop computer. For some reason Speedfan generally doesn't work with laptop computers, though.

Sometimes you need to use tools other then MemTest86+ to diagnose flaky / transient issues. MemTest86+ doesn't put enough of a load on the CPU to catch things like flaky memory timings. My preference is the Prime95 client, which folks have used for close to 10 years as a torture test. In fact, the Prime95 folks finally added a "torture test" option many years ago. QuickPar is also sensitive to flaky systems and will often catch errors (but isn't as thourough of a test as Prime95 is).

System shutdowns are typically either:

- Thermal initiated (so use SpeedFan and monitor your temps)

- Power related, the PSU can't keep up with the load, drops a voltage and the motherboard / CPU panics.

If your system can run Prime95 for 48 hours straight with zero errors, you've got a good stable system. We typically run Prime95 as our burn-in test while exercising the disks with another program for a few days prior to releasing the machine to the end-user.

Mine has two seagates and a WD right now, and although they don't have fans, they all have at least an inch of clearence above them for the heat to escape to, and openings around them for the heat to get out of the case.

That only helps if there's air moving in those gaps. If the air isn't moving, it just sits there and cooks the drive. Fortunately, it doesn't take much airflow to cool a drive. (I've seen SATA drives cook in a fanless bay, even with 1+ inch of space all around the drive.)

Hopefully you're monitoring your drive temps with SpeedFan or lm_sensors.

For windows, try SpeedFan.

I see you still haven't fixed your shift key. Can't afford the $10 for a new keyboard?

smart gives sometimes shifty results.

Of course, but it's easy to check if something is really wrong. So far, I've never had a false warning, but I can't get SMART support on most of my drives, so they fail with no warning.

this guy should know quite easily if he's emachine is overheating or not

No kidding. My laptop cooling fan doesn't even run full time when I'm at 100% cpu load.

I'll take a look at speedfan. I probably missed it because I didn't search for "S.M.A.R.T.".

hard search? pretty shitty search, maybe try a soft search next time.

for example, speedfan does it. but seriously though.. smart gives sometimes shifty results.

seriously though, this guy should know quite easily if he's emachine is overheating or not: just leave it decoding a dvd or whatever. if it fails then yeah, something is wrong with it. if he is just worrying over his lap getting warm and wanting some magic feelgood number program.. then just about anything that shows him some number, any number, would do nicely.

If you're lucky enough to have a motherboard that can do it this program controls the fan speed based on temperature. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Swapping out HDs makes a big difference and is one of the less invasive upgrades towards a quieter PC. I replaced a Western Digital 60 GB drive with a Samsung (who knew they made HDs?) and the noise/whine difference is substantial. I could hear the WD spin up at startup from the next room (wwwwwwhhhhhhhEEEEEEEEE!) and it continually produced a high-pitch whine while idle. The Samsung produces imperceptible levels of noise at startup or idle and its seek chatter is very low.

Thermalright makes heatsinks. Or more accurately, "massive machined chunks of copper". There's a reason many of their models require bolts to install, they'd pull the socket right out of the motherboard without the additional support. The heatsinks are great besides the heft because they don't include an integrated fan, you can buy a quiet 92mm Panaflo or Pabst fan and quietly cool even top-end CPUs.

Installing a fan controller helps squeeze the last few decibels out of the case, but you might run into the problem of the controller producing a rapid clicking noise at low voltages (the Vantec NXP-201 suffers from this problem, but is dirt cheap). SpeedFan is a software fan controller, but I've never quite figured out its usage.

A PC with a low noise floor makes listening to music more enjoyable as the dynamic range comes through without having to crank of the volume to drown out the fans.

To hangout with the hardcore "suspending harddrives with elastic / undervolting motherboards / 0 db computer" crowd visit Silent PC Review.

Try booting into safe mode, and see if your machine is stable there, if it is, it's likely a driver problem.

XP creates more heat than say linux sometimes, try monitoring the temperature in XP, using something like speedfan.

There's an RPC exploit that just recently came out (sigh), but upon further research, it looks like that just shuts your machine down and reboots it.

Check the event log, see if there's anything suspicious there.

I hate to say it, but if worse comes to worse, re-install, shouldn't be that big of a deal since your xp partition is basically useless anyway with it locking up constantly. I always keep xp on it's own partition, so I can rebuild my machine in a few hours if needed. I usually end up doing a re-install once a year or so, mostly due to me upgrading hardware, getting a new mobo, etc. I has the nice effect of keeping my install "fresh", since I'm constantly downloading game demos, install other stupid games, etc.

If you do re-install, I'd suggest not using that 3rd party nvidia driver for a while and keep an eye on your machine, and then install it, if it starts crashing again, you knows that's it.