Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed

160CHAPTER 6Analyzing HardwareCAUTIONThe output of the biosdecode and dmidecode utilities may not be 100% accurate. Forexample, sometimes the BIOS returns the highest possible processor speed the motherboardallows, not the actual processor speed of the processor installed. Use itsoutput with caution.Querying the BIOSAs the root user, execute the biosdecode command to query the BIOS for system information.Listing 6.10 shows example output.LISTING 6.10Output from biosdecode# biosdecode 2.7ACPI 1.0 present.OEM Identifier: INTELRSD Table 32-bit Address: 0x7FEFDE48PNP BIOS 1.0 present.Event Notification: Not SupportedReal Mode 16-bit Code Address: F000:A6DCReal Mode 16-bit Data Address: 0040:000016-bit Protected Mode Code Address: 0x000FA6E716-bit Protected Mode Data Address: 0x00000400OEM Device Identifier: SST2400SMBIOS 2.3 present.Structure Table Length: 1616 bytesStructure Table Address: 0x000E34F0Number Of Structures: 34Maximum Structure Size: 150 bytesThe output for each system will vary, depending on what type of data the BIOS returnsand what features the BIOS and system hardware have. In Listing 6.10, information aboutthe ACPI, PNP BIOS, and SMBIOS are given. The following types of data can be displayedif returned by the BIOS:. SMBIOS. ACPI. 32OS (Compaq-specific). DMI. BIOS32. SNY. SYSID. PIR. VPD (IBM-specific). PNPQuerying the SMBIOS or DMIIf the output from biosdecode shows a SMBIOS or DMI, further information can beretrieved from the SMBIOS or DMI with the dmidecode command. The dmidecodecommand must be run as the root user as well. It displays information about each structurefound such as the processor and BIOS structures shown in Listing 6.11.