Over time, it’s easy to forget what motherboard our PC has, and if we’ve thrown away the box and manuals, we may not know what to do to identify it. If you find yourself in this situation, don’t worry, this article will tell you step by step what you need to do discover effortlessly and in secondswhat exact model is your computer.

So that all our readers can find a solution adapted to their preferences and knowledge, I’ll leave you with a few ways to identify your computer’s motherboard. The first are more direct and prevent us from having to resort to third-party applications, and in the second we will use a light, simple and absolutely reliable application.

I am aware that not all of our readers use Windows, so in the final section you will also find an explanation of how to identify your computer’s motherboard model on Linux, something that is also very easy, but I understand that it can cause doubts among newcomers to this operating system.

If you’re thinking of buying a new motherboard and don’t know where to start, I recommend taking a look at ours updated shopping guide. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll help you out. Without further ado, let’s get started.

How to identify the motherboard in Windows without third-party applications

It’s very simple if you have a chassis with a glass side you can look and search for a name on the same motherboard. Some models come with the full name screen printed on their parts, like the GIGABYTE B650E AORUS ELITE X AX ICE, which has it written just to the left of the RAM slots.

If the name does not appear, do not worry, turn on the computer and when Windows loads, do the following:

• Open a command console by pressing the Windows key and typing “run”.
• Once done, copy the following command (without quotes): “wmic database get product, manufacturer, version, serial number”.
• The result will appear with the information you can see in the attached image immediately.

On the far left is the name of the motherboard manufacturer, in the middle we have the exact name of the motherboardwhich in this example is the Aorus X570 Ultra, and the serial number and its version may appear on the right.

Thanks to this information, we can perfectly identify our motherboard and look for more information on the manufacturer’s website, as well as download the correct updates and the right software, and even get help if we need it.

Another way to identify the motherboard is to enter the BIOS directly. You have to do that press the “delete” button repeatedly. during the PC startup process. You will be taken to the home interface of your board, which will vary depending on each specific manufacturer.

For example, GIGABYTE welcomes us with a very simple interface that displays the name of the board in the upper left cornerwhile MSI displays the name on Top right corner, as you can see in the attached pictures. To exit the BIOS, just press the Escape key and the Exit option without saving if you didn’t take the opportunity to apply the changes you want to keep.

How to identify the motherboard in Windows with third-party applications

There are many applications that we can use for this purpose, but my favorite because it is light and intuitive is CPU-Z. We can download it absolutely free through the link I left you in this paragraph, and once we install it, just run it and go to the “Motherboard” tab.where a lot of information about our motherboard will appear.

You can see it in the attached picture we have much more information. The window shows both the manufacturer and the exact model of the board, as well as details of its key specifications, including the type of PCIe interface, which in this case is Gen4 with 16 lanes for the graphics card, as well as the BIOS version, its date and chipset type.

All this information can be very useful to know if we are using the BIOS it is very old and if we need an update and also to find out what exact version we are using and what steps we should take into account when updating the BIOS because in specific cases we may need to do specific things to go from a relatively old BIOS to a newer one and in this case it is essential to know the exact version we are using.

How to find out what motherboard I have in Linux without third party applications

Just open a terminal using the keyboard shortcut “Control + Alt + T”. Once this is done, we enter the command (without quotes) “sudo dmidecode -t 2” and press enter on the keyboard. The most important information about our motherboard will be displayed, including information from the manufacturer to the exact model and serial number.

With all this information, we can also consult specific details on the motherboard manufacturer’s page, download updates that are suitable for our motherboard and provide important data to official technical support in case we have to resort to it.

Please note that the information we collect may vary depending on the Linux distribution we are using, but in any case we will always have enough details to correctly identify the motherboard model we have, which is ultimately what we need.

Having already identified it, if we want to know more about its specifications, we will find them perfectly detailed on the official website of the manufacturer, where all its features and the most important details at the compatibility level are normally listed, such as supported memory both in terms of capacity and speed and compatible standards.

Why is it important to know what motherboard I have?

It is very important because the motherboard is the central pillar of our PC. Things like:

• Compatible processors, which we find out by the socket.
• Compatible RAM, maximum capacity and supported speeds.
• Compatible standards, something that affects both components and connectivity. For example, a motherboard limited to PCIe Gen4 will not be able to take advantage of PCIe Gen5 SSDs.
• The type of chipset used also determines the performance level of the motherboard. For example, only the Z690 and Z790 series chipsets allow you to overclock an Intel Gen 12, Gen 13 or Gen 14 K-series processor.
• The chipset can also determine the number and type of connectors present on the motherboard and the number of PCIe lanes available.
• Motherboards with higher-end chipsets usually have more powerful VRM systems that allow optimal use of a wider range of processors.

If you want to find out advanced things like the type of VRM that the motherboard uses or the number of PCIe lanes, we will have to go to the official website of the manufacturer, as I told you before, because these types of specifications not registered nor in major third-party hardware monitoring applications.