How to find or check the speed and type of RAM (DDR or DDR2) without opening the computer. In case you need to buy more memory for a computer is necessary to know the exact specifications of the same. As find out information from the shell prompt?

To this end we use the command utility biosdecode. Dmidecode is a tool to display information of the contents of the table of DMI (SMBIOS) of the machine. This information contains the description of the hardware of the system components and information about the serial numbers and the revision of the BIOS. This command works on Linux, BSD UNIX and computers.

We opened a window of the console promt shell and write; 


  fher98 @ betuntu: ~ $ sudo dmidecode - type 17 
  [sudo] password for fher98: 
  # Dmidecode 2.9 
  SMBIOS 2.3 present. 

  Handle 0x0022, DMI type 17, 27 bytes 
  Memory Device 
  Array Handle: 0x0020 
  Error Information Handle: Not Provided 
  Total Width: 64 bits 
  Data Width: 64 bits 
  Size: 256 MB 
  Form Factor: DIMM 
  Set: None 
  Locator: DIMM1 
  Bank Locator: BANK1 
  Type: DDR 
  Type Detail: Synchronous 
  Speed: 400 MHz (2.5 ns) 
  Manufacturer: Manufacturer1 
  Serial Number: SerNum1 
  Asset Tag: AssetTagNum1 
  Part Number: PartNum1 

  Handle 0x0024, DMI type 17, 27 bytes 
  Memory Device 
  Array Handle: 0x0020 
  Error Information Handle: Not Provided 
  Total Width: 64 bits 
  Data Width: 64 bits 
  Size: 256 MB 
  Form Factor: DIMM 
  Set: None 
  Locator: DIMM2 
  Bank Locator: BANK2 
  Type: DDR 
  Type Detail: Synchronous 
  Speed: 400 MHz (2.5 ns) 
  Manufacturer: Manufacturer2 
  Serial Number: SerNum2 
  Asset Tag: AssetTagNum2 
  Part Number: PartNum2 

  Handle 0x0026, DMI type 17, 27 bytes 
  Memory Device 
  Array Handle: 0x0020 
  Error Information Handle: Not Provided 
  Total Width: 64 bits 
  Data Width: 64 bits 
  Size: 256 MB 
  Form Factor: DIMM 
  Set: None 
  Locator: DIMM3 
  Bank Locator: BANK3 
  Type: DDR 
  Type Detail: Synchronous 
  Speed: 400 MHz (2.5 ns) 
  Manufacturer: Manufacturer3 
  Serial Number: SerNum3 
  Asset Tag: AssetTagNum3 
  Part Number: PartNum3 

  Handle 0x0028, DMI type 17, 27 bytes 
  Memory Device 
  Array Handle: 0x0020 
  Error Information Handle: Not Provided 
  Total Width: Unknown 
  Data Width: Unknown 
  Size: Not Installed Module 
  Form Factor: DIMM 
  Set: None 
  Locator: DIMM4 
  Bank Locator: BANK4 
  Type: Unknown 
  Type Detail: Unknown 
  Speed: Unknown 
  Manufacturer: Manufacturer4 
  Serial Number: SerNum4 
  Asset Tag: AssetTagNum4 
  Part Number: PartNum4


As the result of the above command, we can see that my computer has 4 memory banks, busy with 3 DIMMs 256MB each. Strange, I thought I had a 512MB and 256MB.

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