Introduction
Sooner or later you will need to know the manufacturer and exact model of your motherboard, especially if you do plan to upgrade your computer, since the upgrade capabilities of your computer are set by the motherboard model you have. You will need to know this information if you need to perform a BIOS upgrade or download your motherboard manual or drivers. A BIOS upgrade is needed to make your computer to recognize a new CPU, and the manual is necessary if you want to check how much RAM your computer is able to recognize, for example.
Finding out this information is not so easy, because many manufacturers simply don’t print on the motherboard their name or the model name. Also, you may want to check if the motherboard installed in your PC is really the model you ordered. Usually the warranty is void if you open your computer, so you will need to learn how to find out this information without opening your PC.
How it is possible to know the motherboard manufacturer thru software? Inside the computer BIOS there is a serial number, which has includes a code for the manufacturer. So, what a hardware identification utility does is to read the BIOS serial number and to decipher it for you. Read our tutorial Deciphering the BIOS Serial Number for a detailed explanation on this subject.
We will teach you how to use three very popular hardware identification programs to find out your motherboard manufacturer and model: Sandra, Everest and Hwinfo (all available on our download section).
After you found out your motherboard manufacturer and model, you may want to know what is the manufacturer website and where you can download the latest BIOS, drivers and manual for your motherboard model. This can be found at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/page/drivers_motherboard.
Sandra
After installing Sandra, run it and go to Modules, Information Modules, Mainboard Information or simply double click the Mainboard Information icon present on Sandra’s main screen.
Sandra will need one minute to collect all information about your computer. On the screen it will show, you can easily see your motherboard manufacturer under Manufacturer and its model under Model. Take a look on Figure 1 and you will see that we were using a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra motherboard.
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Figure 1: Identifying your motherboard manufacturer and model with Sandra.
On this screen you can also find several other useful information about your motherboard, like how many memory slots it has and which ones are used and the chipset model your motherboard is based on. You can also see the BIOS serial number we were talking about under System BIOS.
Everest
After installing Everest, run it and go to Motherboard, Motherboard. The screen on Figure 2 will be shown. Your motherboard manufacturer and model will be shown under Motherboard Name. As you can see, we were using a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra motherboard.
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Figure 2: Identifying your motherboard manufacturer and model with Everest.
On this screen you can also find several other useful information about your motherboard, like the clock speed the memory is running, how many expansion slots it has, how many memory slots it has and which ones are used and the chipset model your motherboard is based on. You can also see the BIOS serial number we were talking about under Motherboard ID. Everest also includes a direct link for download your motherboard BIOS at the end of this screen, just scroll down to see it. This feature is really convenient if you are planning to upgrade your motherboard BIOS.
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Figure 3: Everest provides a direct link for downloading your motherboard BIOS.
Hwinfo32
After installing Hwinfo32, run it (it will take one minute to collect all hardware info from your computer) and click on Motherboard. You will see your motherboard manufacturer and model being listed under Motherboard Model, as you can see on Figure 4. As you can see, we were using a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra motherboard.
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Figure 4: Identifying your motherboard manufacturer and model with Hwinfo32.
On this screen you can see also some basic features of your motherboard, like the number of expansion slots it has and the chipset model on which it is based.
Originally at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/236
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