I2CDUMP(8) System Manager's Manual I2CDUMP(8)
NAME
i2cdump - examine I2C registers
SYNOPSIS
i2cdump [-f] [-r first-last] [-y] [-a] i2cbus address [mode [bank
[bankreg]]]
i2cdump -V
i2cdump -h
DESCRIPTION
i2cdump is a small helper program to examine registers visible through
the I2C bus.
OPTIONS
-V Display the version and exit.
-h Display the help and exit.
-f Force access to the device even if it is already busy. By de-
fault, i2cdump will refuse to access a device which is already
under the control of a kernel driver. Using this flag is danger-
ous, it can seriously confuse the kernel driver in question. It
can also cause i2cdump to return invalid results. So use at your
own risk and only if you know what you're doing.
-r first-last
Limit the range of registers being accessed. This option is not
available with mode s. For mode W, first must be even and last
must be odd.
-y Disable interactive mode. By default, i2cdump will wait for a
confirmation from the user before messing with the I2C bus. When
this flag is used, it will perform the operation directly. This
is mainly meant to be used in scripts.
-a Allow using addresses between 0x00 - 0x07 and 0x78 - 0x7f. Not
recommended.
At least two options must be provided to i2cdump. i2cbus indicates the
number or name of the I2C bus to be scanned. This number should corre-
spond to one of the busses listed by i2cdetect -l. address indicates the
address to be scanned on that bus, and is an integer between 0x08 and
0x77.
The mode parameter, if specified, is one of the letters b, w, or i, cor-
responding to a read size of a single byte, a 16-bit word, an I2C block,
respectively. The c mode is a little different, it reads all bytes con-
secutively, and is useful for chips that have an address auto-increment
feature, such as EEPROMs. The W mode is also special, it is similar to w
except that a read command will only be issued on even register ad-
dresses; this is again mainly useful for EEPROMs.
A p can also be appended to the mode parameter (except for i and W) to
enable PEC. If the mode parameter is omitted, i2cdump defaults to byte
access without PEC.
The bank and bankreg parameters are useful on the W83781D and similar
chips (at the time of writing, all Winbond and Asus chips). bank is an
integer between 0 and 7, and bankreg is an integer between 0x00 and 0xFF
(default value: 0x4E). The W83781D data sheet has more information on
bank selection.
WARNING
i2cdump can be dangerous if used improperly. Most notably, the c mode
starts with WRITING a byte to the chip. On most chips it will be stored
in the address pointer register, which is OK, but some chips with a sin-
gle register or no (visible) register at all will most likely see this
as a real WRITE, resulting in possible misbehavior or corruption. Do not
use i2cdump on random addresses. Anyway, it is of little use unless you
have good knowledge of the chip you're working with and an idea of what
you are looking for.
EXAMPLES
Dump the whole contents of I2C device at 7-bit address 0x50 on bus 9
(i2c-9), using the default read method (byte mode), after user confirma-
tion:
# i2cdump 9 0x50
Immediately dump the whole contents of I2C device at 7-bit address 0x50
on bus 9 (i2c-9), using I2C block read transactions (no user confirma-
tion):
# i2cdump -y 9 0x50 i
If the device is an EEPROM, the output would typically be the same as
output of the previous example.
Dump registers 0x00 to 0x3f of the I2C device at 7-bit address 0x2d on
bus 1 (i2c-1), using the default read method (byte mode), after user
confirmation:
# i2cdump -r 0x00-0x3f 1 0x2d
BUGS
To report bugs or send fixes, please write to the Linux I2C mailing list
<linux-i2c@vger.kernel.org> with Cc to the current maintainer: Jean Del-
vare <jdelvare@suse.de>.
SMBus block mode used to be supported by this tool. Please use i2cget
instead.
SEE ALSO
i2cdetect(8), i2cget(8), i2cset(8), i2ctransfer(8), isadump(8)
AUTHOR
Frodo Looijaard, Mark D. Studebaker and Jean Delvare
This manual page was originally written by David Z Maze <dmaze@de-
bian.org> for the Debian GNU/Linux system.
May 2022 I2CDUMP(8)
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