/proc/cpuinfo fails to detect CPU model name

Question

We have a server which has four Intel Xeon E7 4860 CPU. Strangely, the model name in /proc/cpuinfo contains a 000 string instead of E4860.

Incorrect model name:

model name  : Genuine Intel(R) CPU             000  @ 2.27GHz

Correct model name:

model name  : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           E5620  @ 2.40GHz

The servers runs Arch Linux with kernel 3.2.12

BTW, I digged into kernel source code and found the relevant information are retrieved using Intel CPUID instruction.

It might help you to search for "Linux kernel misdetects Intel Xeon as Genuine Intel" rather than focus on the /proc/cpuinfo API. — j13r, Apr 05 '12 at 14:33

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 05 '12 at 14:29

1

Try the dmidecode command to compare results.

answered Apr 05 '12 at 14:29

ewwhite

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 05 '12 at 15:30

0

How about the lshw command? Does that give you the model number?

edited Apr 05 '12 at 15:30

jscott

answered Apr 05 '12 at 14:57

johnshen64

no, the result is same as /proc/cpuinfo. This is because lshw internally parse /proc/cpuinfo – yl35 Apr 05 '12 at 15:18
you are right. i guess /dev/cpu/*/cpuid will be the same deal then. i wonder if it is a kernel bug or something with the hardware itself. what if you boot up a livecd/liveusb with a different distro or even different OS, say windows 7? – johnshen64 Apr 05 '12 at 15:36

2 Answers2