Linux get motherboard model

Developers Log

This week my old Linux box refused to boot: for a few times when clicking the power button, I was confronted with a black screen and an annoying beeping. Luckily, after a few tries my computer wound up booting up and as of today it works flawlessly.

Still this incident got me thinking: the beeping was warning me of some kind of issue with the hardware that might reappear soon, it is an old machine after all, and hardware failures are to be expected at some point. It would be a good idea, therefore, to do some research to be prepared if it happens again.

I needed to find out what the beep codes of the BIOS stood for, and for that I needed to know my motherboard model … I knew it was a Gigabyte, but I could not remember the exact model.

An easy way to find out my exact memory board model would be to simply open the case and look at the sticker in the motherboard:-) Even easier would be to use one of the many programs available for Linux that query the system for hardware information.

One of such programs is dmidecode; dmidecode reports a variety of information about the system hardware:

Dmidecode reports information about your system’s hardware as described in your system BIOS according to the SMBIOS/DMI standard. This information typically includes system manufacturer, model name, serial number, BIOS version, asset tag as well as a lot of other details of varying level of interest and reliability depending on the manufacturer. This will often include usage status for the CPU sockets, expansion slots (e.g. AGP, PCI, ISA) and memory module slots, and the list of I/O ports (e.g. serial, parallel, USB).

So I proceed to install the package:

Running the dmidecode command on the console produced an extended amount of information, including the mother board model – which was what I was trying to find out.

If we run the dmidecode with the –help switch, though, we will find ways to check for more specific information:

Usage: dmidecode [OPTIONS] Options are: -d, --dev-mem FILE Read memory from device FILE (default: /dev/mem) -h, --help Display this help text and exit -q, --quiet Less verbose output -s, --string KEYWORD Only display the value of the given DMI string -t, --type TYPE Only display the entries of given type -u, --dump Do not decode the entries --dump-bin FILE Dump the DMI data to a binary file --from-dump FILE Read the DMI data from a binary file -V, --version Display the version and exit

From the above options the ones of interest if we want to query the system for a specific item (memory, motherboard, cpu, etc) are –string, and –type.

Run –string without any arguments to find the possible string values:

dmidecode: option '--string' requires an argument String keyword expected Valid string keywords are: bios-vendor bios-version bios-release-date system-manufacturer system-product-name system-version system-serial-number system-uuid baseboard-manufacturer baseboard-product-name baseboard-version baseboard-serial-number baseboard-asset-tag chassis-manufacturer chassis-type chassis-version chassis-serial-number chassis-asset-tag processor-family processor-manufacturer processor-version processor-frequency

If I am looking for the motherboard model the string I need to use is baseboard-product-name:

dmidecode --string baseboard-product-name

Which produces, in my case, this output:

Notice that in this example I queried the system for very specific information. I was not only interested in information about the motherboard, but the only thing that I cared about was the specific model.

If I had wanted instead to print all the information regarding the motherboard I could have used the –type switch. Let’s have a look at the available –type values:

dmidecode: option '--type' requires an argument Type number or keyword expected Valid type keywords are: bios system baseboard chassis processor memory cache connector slot

As you see we can get information on various components of the system.

Anyway, having found out my original motherboard model, I could google for information about the beep codes, or download the specific motherboard manual from the Gigabyte‘s site.

Next time my ancient Linux box starts acting up I will be ready :-). That’s all, thanks for reading. If you found this information useful, you can subscribe to my blog (click at the “follow” button at the bottom) to be notified of new posts.

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How to Find Out What Motherboard You Have in Linux or Ubuntu

Just like with RAM cards and any USB, PCI or PCI Express devices that you might have attached to your system, Linux provides you with tools to find the make and model of the motherboard you have installed. This is particularly useful because while it can be difficult to get at the other devices to have a look at them, the motherboard is in even a worse spot when it comes to inspection.

Desktop workstations lock their motherboards in a case, and small netbooks or tablets might have a motherboard that’s impossible to access. You can perform an inspection with the command line or by mousing around in a graphical program. Both methods give you essentially the same information.

Method 1: Finding Out what Motherboard you Have with the Terminal

You’ll need to start a terminal window up by holding down Ctrl+Alt+T or by clicking on the Applications Menu, pointing to System Tools and then clicking on Terminal. Ubuntu users who still have the Unity Dash can search for the word Terminal at it and then select the option that comes up.

In any case, you should now be at a normal bash command prompt. From here, type sudo dmidecode | grep -A3 ‘^System Information’ and then push the enter key. You’ll need to type your administrative password if you’re working at a fresh prompt, since a normal user account can’t go poking around with the motherboard.

Polling the board should take nearly no time at all. On the low-powered i386 netbook we tested this command on, it took less than half a second. If there’s any sort of delay, then you might want to make sure that you entered it correctly. You can always swipe the text from this article with your mouse and then copy it. Click on the Edit menu in your terminal then select paste. Holding down Shift+Ctrl+V also works to paste copied text in a terminal.

As long as it ran correctly, then you’re completely done with no further playing around. Generally, motherboards themselves don’t actually have version numbers, as versions are reserved for software. The version number that gets displayed here is referencing the firmware we had installed in the BIOS. If you run this on a more modern UEFI system, then you might see a bit of additional information.

If you’re interested in reading more about your machine’s logic systems, then you have another option to run from the terminal if you’d like. Nevertheless, for most people the above technique was more than enough. It doesn’t require any additional playing around, though, so you can feel free to run it from the same terminal screen that you’re already at.

Try typing sudo dmidecode -t baseboard at the terminal and push enter to receive a mess of information about the baseboard that you’re using in your computer. While this will give you more information than the previous command would have, it will still be in a human-readable format, which makes it useful for troubleshooting.

This command will additionally tell you whether or not the logic board that you’re working with is replaceable and where it is in the chassis. Since it uses grep, it still sorts it out quite nice however. Once again, the version number it returns is more than likely related to firmware. You might notice that the manufacturer name differs from the above command, which is the result of the vendor and manufacturer of a piece of hardware not always being completely the same company.

Method 2: Graphically Find Your Motherboard Using hardinfo

If you’re using LXDE or some GNOME implementations, then you have a tool called hardinfo installed. This does the same job, albeit graphically. Most users will want to use the command line app above, but the old Unix rule about there being more than one way to accomplish a task applies here. If you’re using a desktop environment that includes it, then click on the Application menu, point to System Tools and then click on System Profiler and Benchmark. This should go for most compatible re-spins of popular Linux distributions. For instance, Ubuntu got re-spun as Lubuntu with the LXDE desktop environment and there are versions of Debian and Fedora that come with this tool.

When it first starts, hardinfo may greet you with a blank screen or focus on Kernel Modules or something else that’s not relevant to the information that you’re trying to find right now.

Scroll down to where it reads Devices on the left-hand side of the window and then click on DMI to find the same information that you would have in the command line app.

Even though it might take a couple extra seconds, this method usually won’t require you to use any administrative access, so it’s useful in situations where sudo doesn’t work. If you don’t have this program but you would like a copy, then you can head back over to the terminal window from the first method. Type sudo apt-get install hardinfo and push enter You’ll be asked to push the y key in order to approve the install. This gives you the option of running hardinfo on another type of desktop environment that might not come with it, such as the popular lightweight Xfce4 environment or something more full-featured like KDE Plasma.

If it doesn’t add an application shortcut to your menu, then you can just type hardinfo to run it from the terminal.

Once again, you might have noticed that the name of the manufacturer doesn’t stay the same. The reason for this is related to digital hardware vending practices. That being said, as long as you know one of the names and a model number you should be able to look documentation or replacement parts up online. In fact, if you do a quick search you might find that there are many different system boards packaged under different names that feature the same design as yours.

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Как узнать модель материнской платы Linux

Иногда возникает необходимость определить, какая материнская плата используется на вашем компьютере. В операционной системе Windows с этим не возникнет никаких проблем, так как существует множество программ для решения этой задачи. Например, та же CPU-Z.

В Linux подобных утилит тоже хватает, и часть из них уже поставляется вместе с операционной системой, другие нужно устанавливать. Далее я расскажу, как узнать модель материнской платы Linux различными способами.

Как посмотреть модель материнской платы Linux

1. Файловая система /sys

Информация обо всём оборудовании компьютера и об операционной системе хранится в файловой системе /sys. Там же вы можете посмотреть производителя, модель и версию материнской платы. Для этого выполните:

2. Утилита dmidecode

Для просмотра информации об оборудовании удобнее использовать специальные утилиты. Одна из них — dmidecode. Она позволяет посмотреть информацию, записанную в DMI. Для вывода данных о материнской плате используйте опцию -t со значением 2:

3. Утилита hardinfo

Программа hardinfo позволяет просмотреть информацию об оборудовании компьютера в графическом интерфейсе. Здесь вы легко узнаете модель материнской платы. Но перед использованием программу нужно установить:

sudo apt install hardinfo

4. Утилита CPU-G

Программа CPU-G — это аналог такой популярной утилиты, как CPU-Z в Linux. Она написана на Python, внешне напоминает CPU-Z. Позволяет увидеть большинство характеристик процессора в графическом интерфейсе, узнать модель платы, которая используется. Для установки утилиты надо использовать PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt install cpu-g

В программе нужно открыть вкладку Motherbaord. Здесь отображается версия BIOS, дата выпуска BIOS, а также информация о плате.

5. Команда lshw

Команда lshw отображает информацию о материнской плате в самом начале своего вывода. Здесь, кроме производителя и модели платы, выводится текущая версия BIOS, что может быть очень удобно, если вы готовитесь к обновлению BIOS.

6. Лог dmesg

Версию BIOS и модель материнской платы можно узнать из лога ядра dmesg. Для этого надо отфильтровать строчку DMI:

Выводы

В этой статье мы рассмотрели несколько способов, как узнать модель материнской платы Linux. Это совсем не сложно, и программ для решения такой задачи хватает с головой. А какие программы используете вы? Напишите в комментариях!

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