BIOS settings for processor? Command to get processor speed?? Memory speed?

newtovanilla · 11-29-2008, 01:18 PM

Linux newbie. Have Award BIOS, AMD Sempron processor, and want to find out right setting to use for BIOS. The BIOS options allow you to choose:
"CPU Overclock Mhz" 200-250
"AGP Overclock Mhz" 66 -100
"AGP 2.0 Speed" 1,1x2,1x2x4
"HT Frequency" 1,2,3,4

After I can get Linux to boot up, how can I use the command line to get the clock speed that the processor is running at (not the name of the processor, but the speed that the BIOS set it to run at?)?

How can I get the speed of the memory from the commnad line?

I know that there was this command that I could use to test the write speed to the harddrive, but what about the processor and the memory?

jcliburn · 11-30-2008, 06:54 AM

For the cpu:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

For memory:

dmidecode

kaz2100 · 11-30-2008, 06:58 AM

Hya,

If I understand your post,
cpu info can be obtained under /sys directory.

Happy Penguins!

newtovanilla · 12-04-2008, 05:17 PM

> more /proc/cpuinfo

Gave some information on the cpu, but it did not time the cpu to tell me how fast it is running. Doesn't it just tell you what it reads from the cpu?

> ls /sys

There are directories there, but how does that get me cpu speed or memory speed?

# dmidecode

Gave information on the memory size, bank, but it did not give the speed of the memory? How can I time the memory to find the speed per bank?

amani · 12-04-2008, 05:51 PM

see www.makelinux.net for more info on /proc

plenty of GUI indicators are available

istro?

man dmidecode

try phoronix test suite

jcliburn · 12-04-2008, 06:19 PM

/proc/cpuinfo gives the clock speed of your CPU(s) at that moment. In the case below, that's 1596 MHz.

Code:

jcliburn@osprey:~$ grep Hz /proc/cpuinfo
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU          6400  @ 2.13GHz
cpu MHz		: 1596.000
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU          6400  @ 2.13GHz
cpu MHz		: 1596.000

dmidecode gives memory speed.

Code:

jcliburn@osprey:~$ sudo /usr/sbin/dmidecode -t memory | grep -i speed
	Supported Speeds:
	Current Speed: 30 ns
	Current Speed: 30 ns
	Speed: 333 MHz (3.0 ns)
	Speed: 333 MHz (3.0 ns)

farslayer · 12-04-2008, 07:40 PM

in addition to dmidecode you can use lshw to get a nicely formated output of the information and a bit more.

lshw -C processor

lshw -C memory

phoronix test suite for the benchmarking.. http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/

jcliburn · 12-04-2008, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by farslayer

in addition to dmidecode you can use lshw to get a nicely formated output of the information and a bit more.

lshw -C processor

lshw -C memory

Indeed. I wasn't aware lshw was packaged for Fedora, but it is.

yum install lshw.

Thanks for the tip.

farslayer · 12-04-2008, 08:28 PM

after getting used to the number of packages in Debians repository, I rarely ever think a package wont be available...
I sometimes forget everyone doesn't have it quite so easy

AuroraCA · 12-04-2008, 09:23 PM

Most modern BIOS auto detect memory and CPU operating speeds. See if you have an Auto setting in BIOS and use that.