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Is there a way to find what motherboard model I have?

If yes, how, please?

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7 Answers 7

612

This will directly show you motherboard info:

sudo dmidecode -t 2

or

sudo dmidecode | more

You can also try:

lspci
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  • 47
    I wish this was the accepted answer and that I could remember that forever. No more pausing during bios boot, no more opening the case, no need to install anything.
    – bksunday
    Oct 29, 2014 at 22:04
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    Lol, has more upvotes as the question and accepted answer combined! But, in the end, I think Hastur's answer is the best (and it took 3 years to get that rock solid answer that doesn't require 3rd party utilities!)
    – Cestarian
    Mar 2, 2016 at 9:25
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    dmidecode -t 1 gave me the current Product Name. type 2 gave some serials which will not help that much. Im sure that types of dmi data differs across motherboards.
    – m3nda
    Feb 11, 2018 at 9:53
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    @erm3nda -t 2 means Baseboard information, see man dmidecode Jun 18, 2018 at 13:46
  • This is great. Till now I was accessing dmidecode's output tables by their hex addresses, which I possibly singled out by guessing. This is way safer and clearer. For completeness, you can check what each type (t in the command above) stands to here. (well man already details it, as Vadim Kotov instructs, above)
    – Veverke
    Nov 12, 2020 at 13:54
169

There's also some great graphical tools that show you not just your motherboard info, but all info about your computer.

  1. Hardinfo

    Search for the hardinfo package in the Software Center or run sudo apt-get install hardinfo from the command line. The motherboard make and model can be found on the Devices > DMI page.

    Hardinfo image

  2. CPU-G - Linux alternative to the popular Windows application CPU-Z. Originally created by ftsamis, it has since been picked up by Atareao Team

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

    CPU-G image

  3. lshw-gtk – Graphical frontend for lshw command

    lshw-gtk image

  4. PerlMon

    Perlmon image

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Non-root user variant

I would like to suggest a variant for the unprivileged users, since it's not always possible to execute commands as root (some users simply cannot and however it is always a good practice to avoid running commands as root when it's not needed) and or there is no intention or possibility to install new programs:

cat /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/board_{vendor,name,version}

that it is a short version, shell expanded, of cat /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/board_vendor /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/board_name /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/board_version and gives as a spartan output respectively vendor, name and version:

FUJITSU
D3062-A1
S26361-D3062-A1     

Note:
Inside the path /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/ it's possible to find some files with information about BIOS, board (motherboard), chassis... not all are readable by an unprivileged user due to a security or privacy concerns.


Privileged user variant

Of course, e.g, a sudo cat board_serial (that usually is readable only by root, -r--------) or a sudo cat board_* can easily overcame this limit...

...but, maybe, if privileges are available it's more convenient to use dmidecode as suggested in other answers as well.

Below is the version I prefer, due to the compactness of its output:

sudo dmidecode -t 1                   # or 
sudo dmidecode  | grep -A4 '^Base'    # output more short and compact

The previous command with -A3 will show only the first 3 lines and it is the short version for
sudo dmidecode | grep -A4 '^Base Board Information' that should be better to use if in a script.

Example output:

Base Board Information
    Manufacturer: FUJITSU
    Product Name: D3062-A1
    Version: S26361-D3062-A1            
    Serial Number: MySerialNumber(1)

(1) if it is protected for unprivileged users, then maybe it's better to avoid posting it :-)

Ps> The following works fine too sudo lshw | grep -A5 "Mot" (again "Mot" is the short for "Motherboard" and only "Mo" will not filter words as Model or Mobile...), but I find it a little lazier than dmidecode to answer with its output (lshw 0.906s vs dmidecode 0.024s).

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  • 1
    Perfect! is /sys/devices/ only available on debian-based or any bigger distro?
    – CodeBrauer
    Feb 6, 2017 at 14:22
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    @CodeBrauer It seems it depends from kernel > 2.6.x and not from distro, as you can read in this Fedora thread. ps> "Note that this dmi information may only be applicable to Intel-based PCs" Comment on another answer
    – Hastur
    Feb 6, 2017 at 18:43
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    As non privileged user, to ignore the access error, it's possible to use a more easy to remember command cat /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/board_* 2>/dev/null, redirecting the errors to the holy /dev/null. Of course (I'm lazy) it's always possible to use the command without redirection in an alias or in a script...
    – Hastur
    Mar 23, 2017 at 16:17
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You can also use lshw. It is usually run with sudo as that allows it to probe your devices and accurately report back information. Just run

sudo lshw  

and the first entries in the results will detail your system and the motherboard and the bios, like in the example below:

*-core
       description: Motherboard
       product: Aspire 1700
       vendor: acer
       physical id: 0
       version: 0303
       serial: None
*-firmware
          description: BIOS
          vendor: acer
          physical id: 0
          version: 3C13
          date: 05/12/04
          size: 109KiB
          capacity: 448KiB
          capabilities: isa pci pcmcia pnp upgrade shadowing escd cdboot bootselect socketedrom int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer int10video acpi usb agp smartbattery biosbootspecification

lshw will give you a lot of other information as well; if you want any particular data in future you can run, for example, sudo lshw -class video to find out about your graphics card. For a listing of the hardware classes lshw analyses, enter sudo lshw -short. For more information on the program, enter man lshw in the terminal or visit the Ubuntu manpages.

As Schweinsteiger has noted, dmidecode is also a useful tool for reporting on motherboard info.

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  • FYI, this comes in the same package as the one for lstopo. You can install both using sudo apt-get install -y hwloc Mar 3, 2015 at 22:25
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I found the quickest & easiest way to determine the motherboard model on my computer is:

dmesg | grep DMI:

which, for the Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H-B3 in my computer, yields:

dennis ~ $ dmesg | grep DMI:
[    0.000000] DMI: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. Z68MA-D2H-B3/Z68MA-D2H-B3, BIOS F2 04/15/2011
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Simple one-liner in Ubuntu variants

sudo dmidecode -s baseboard-product-name

will give you motherboard model name

You can also find out motherboard's manufacturer, version, serial-number, asset-tag, and other string commands for other devices.

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This worked for me:

sudo dmidecode --string baseboard-product-name

see: https://charlieharvey.org.uk/page/motherboard_model_make_serial_linux_or_debian_bash_shell

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