Your motherboard determines how much you can upgrade your PC. It also determines what upgrades will and won’t work in your PC. Here’s how to tell what motherboard you have, possibly without even opening your computer.
You can check which motherboard you have by running a WMI command in Windows, dmidecode in Linux, or looking for visual cues on the motherboard itself.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.