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x86test - bootable CPU identification

Savannah project page

x86test is a utility to display information about the processor in an x86/PC system. It is bootable (doesn't run on an operating system) and is currently entirely written in assembler. It should be able to identify the vast majority of x86 CPUs and their current clock speed. For chips that support CPUID it will print as much useful information as it can, including detailed cache configuration where possible.

x86test is released under the GNU General Public License.

x86test is nowhere near complete, whatever complete may eventually be. I consider it to still be very much at the alpha stage.

There are several reasons for x86test being bootable:

• Complete OS independance.
• Some tests are unfeasible from a modern OS e.g. resetting the CPU!
• Complete control of interrupts allows very accurate timings.
• It can safely be run when you are unsure of system stability.

As an example, with complete control of interrupts it is possible to quickly measure the clock speed of a CPU with a TimeStamp Counter to an accuracy limited only by the uncertainty of the reference clock (a 14.318MHz crystal). Even without a TSC, loop instruction timing can give similarly small uncertainties on 486 and later chips -- this would be impossible under a multi-tasking OS.

Being bootable does introduce complications. x86test quickly enters 32-bit protected mode and subsequently has very little direct BIOS dependence. there is a simple (but almost fully functional) AT keyboard driver and a basic text video driver that should work on most VGA compatible adapters. At the moment it defaults to the 8×8 BIOS font, which I admit is not very nice to read, but allows a lot of information to be displayed.

Quick Start

To make a bootable floppy disk from DOS or windows you should get the latest DOS installer from the download section. Unzip the whole archive, insert a formatted floppy disk with at least 40KB of free space in your A: drive, then run install.bat. That's it -- boot up the box to be tested with the floppy in its drive.

You may also want to try the Open-Source Diagnostic Disc, which contains x86test as well as Memtest86+ and GRUB.

For more information see the booting section below as well as the README and INSTALL files in the source.

CPU support

x86test has been tested on many CPUs and systems, but most of these have been pretty standard PCs with common, well documented chips. Here is a quick summarry of what you might expect to work (or not).

Booting

x86test is designed to be very simple to load. Any loader that can load the whole file to anywhere between 0x10000 - 0x90000 (physical) can be used.

Floppy

The simplest method is probably to copy x86test to a FAT12 formatted floppy disk and use fatload.

ElTorito CDROM

Booting from an ElTorito CDROM is straightforward. Just tell whatever you use to construct your iso9660 filesystem to load the whole x86test file in no emulation mode to the address specified at the top of x86test.h (LOAD_ADDR). e.g. for mkisofs you might use:

mkisofs -b x86test -no-emul-boot -boot-load-seg 0x1000 ...

where "..." represents whatever other options you use. x86test will have to be placed in the target directory, but you can omit joliet entries for it so that most people won't know it's there with e.g.

-J -hide-joliet x86test -hide-joliet boot.catalog

note: to get the load segment remove the last zero from LOAD_ADDR

Linux zImage loader

A linux loader such as LILO or GRUB can be used to load x86test from a large range of media and provide an easy way to choose from a selection of programs to boot. For this to work a zImage header must be prepended to x86test. Binaries with this are available form the download section.

Ultimate Boot CD

UBCD is a collection of many bootable programs and bootdisks that load from a single CD. Hopefully a future version will include x86test, but it is not hard to add it yourself. Here is an example for UBCD-3.3.

1. unpack the UBCD image, e.g. on linux,

   	mount -t iso9660 -o loop ubcd.iso /mnt/cdrom
   	cp -a /mnt/cdrom ubcd
   	umount /mnt/cdrom
   

2. copy the x86test zImage binary to isolinux/, calling it just 'x86test'

   	chmod 755 ubcd/isolinux
   	cp x86test_zImage.bin ubcd/isolinux/x86test
   

3. edit isolinux/isolinux.cfg, adding the following to the end:

   	LABEL x86test
   	APPEND -
   

4. add a menu entry by editing e.g. boot/menus/mboard2.scn, adding lines in suitable places:

   	...
   	print " [x] x86test 0.10a                                                              "
   	...
   	if ($lastKey == key[x]); then isolinux x86test
   	...
   

5. build and burn e.g.

   	mkisofs -J -r -D -o ubcd.iso -b boot/loader.bin -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -iso-level 2 ubcd
   	cdrecord dev=1,0,0 speed=16 driveropts=burnfree -v -sao -data ubcd.iso
   

Building

Unless you want the source or need to use a non-standard configuration you can just download a pre-made binary. As it is entirely written in assembly language you should get an identical binary whatever system it is built on.

Building x86test is pretty straightforward. To use the Makefile you will have to have GCC installed, but it shouldn't be too difficult to preprocess, assemble and link it on other systems. Building is currently only tested with all GNU tools.

Most things you are likely to want to change are at the top of x86test.h (LOAD_ADDR, font size etc.). In particular make sure that LOAD_ADDR matches the address your loader will load x86test at. Then just type make. to add a linux zImage header do make x86test_zImage.

Download

The .bin extensions above are just to stop browsers opening the files as text.

the .zip package contains current default x86test and fatload binaries with a small program to install fatload from DOS and a simple install script.

Previous Versions

Example Output

This example is for a 650MHz Mobile Celeron in a micro-PGA2 package (APIC initially disabled by BIOS).

x86test-0.05a

Basic CPUID info:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max level:	2
Vendor:		GenuineIntel
Type:		0
Family:		06
Model:		08
Stepping:	06
Brand ID:	1
Features:	FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV
		PAT PSE-36 MMX FXSR SSE

found local APIC, setting up...

Cache info:
~~~~~~~~~~~
Instruction TLB:	32 entries for 4KB pages, 4-way associative
Instruction TLB:	2 entries for 4MB pages, fully associative
Data TLB:		64 entries for 4KB pages, 4-way associative
L2 cache:		128KB, 4-way associative, 32 bytes/line
L1 Intruction cache:	16KB, 4-way associative, 32 bytes/line
Data TLB:		8 entries for 4MB pages, 4-way associative
L1 Data cache:		16KB, 4-way associative, 32 bytes/line

Intel platform ID: 5

Core clock (CTC + TSC):	645.875 ± 0.033MHz
FSB clock (CTC + APIC):	99.365 ± 0.005MHz
Core/FSB multiplier:	6.5
FSB/14.318MHz ratio:	n/a

CPU type:	Intel Celeron (Coppermine C0 180nm)
Current clock:	645.88MHz (6.5 x 99.365MHz)

x86test all done!

>

Acknowledgements

In making x86test I have used information from an enourmous variety of sources accross the web. The most useful general site for x86 identification (particularly older chips) has to be Grzegorz Mazur's at grafi.ii.pw.edu.pl/gbm/x86/. For more modern CPUs manufacturer's websites have a lot of useful information. In particular, AMD and Transmetta produce pdf files specifically on the subject of recognition and CPUID information. Intel's many CPU specific Specification Updates are also very useful for getting stepping info for recent chips.

The Linux kernel source is a useful source of inspiration and has great examples of how to reliably set up and use a lot of hardware.

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CPUs

booting

building

download

example

credits