How it works
Each board connected to the PCI or PCI Express bus is identified with a Vendor ID, which corresponds to the chip manufacturer, and a Device ID, which corresponds to the model of that chip. This tool translates that pair of numbers to the actual name of the component.
Many boards also add a subsystem: a second pair of identifiers that indicates who assembled the finished board. Thanks to it, a distinction is made, for example, between the network chip that Intel manufactured and the specific board that the server builder integrated. The data comes from the pci.ids file maintained by the PCI ID Project.
Examples
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1521&SUBSYS_06021028Intel Corporation — I350 Gigabit Network Connection — Gigabit 2P I350-t LOMWindows Device Manager format. In SUBSYS_06021028 the last four digits are the board manufacturer and the first four are its model.10de:2482NVIDIA Corporation — GA104 [GeForce RTX 3070 Ti]Short format "manufacturer: device", the same one used by lspci and much of the technical documentation.[8086:1521]Intel Corporation — I350 Gigabit Network ConnectionYou can paste the fragment in square brackets exactly as it appears in the output of lspci -nn.Use cases
- Know which network, video or controller card a computer has when the system shows it as an unknown device.
- Find the correct driver for a board based on the identifier reported by the operating system.
- Distinguish the exact model of a board using the subsystem, when several boards share the same chip.
- Inventory server and virtual machine hardware based on lspci output.
- Verify which component is behind an identifier before configuring device passthrough on a hypervisor.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find a license plate identifier?
On Windows, in the device properties within Device Manager, Details tab, "ID" property. "hardware". On Linux, running lspci -nn, which displays the identifiers in square brackets at the end of each line.
What is the subsystem and what is it for?
It is a second pair of identifiers that describes the finished board, not the chip. The same chip can appear on boards from different brands, with different numbers of ports or memory; The subsystem is what allows us to recognize which one it is.
Why does it find the chip but not the subsystem?
The pci.ids catalog records many more chips than finished boards, because the subsystems are contributed by volunteers as they find the hardware. The fact that the subsystem does not appear does not invalidate the rest of the result.
Is it for USB devices?
No. USB and PCI use separate identifier registers, and the same number can correspond to different manufacturers in each. For USB peripherals you must use the USB identifier tool.
How often is the data updated?
The tool uses a copy of the pci.ids file that is periodically refreshed from the PCI ID Project. Next to the result is the version and date of the catalog with which the query was resolved.