n150 n300 T3000 p100 p150 p300c Galaxy 5 min Validated

Hardware Detection

Confirm the hardware is alive and the software can see it. tt answers first; tt-smi, which tt runs for you, has the raw fields for when you are diagnosing.

Ask tt

tt --version && tt device status

🔍 Device status
VS Code
tt --version && tt device status

One row per chip, DRAM True on each: the machine is healthy. A cloud pod shows one n150; a TT-QuietBox 2 shows four p300c rows. (If you get tt: command not found, go back to Install and Upgrade with tt.)

Two more tt commands answer the next questions:

tt device info      # board ids, PCIe speed and width, firmware versions, one column per chip
tt smi              # hands the terminal to the live tt-smi dashboard (q to quit)

🪪 Device info
VS Code
tt device info

tt device info shows the firmware bundle on each chip (fw.fw_bundle_version), which is the first thing support asks for. tt device status --json gives the same data as JSON, plus the host's OS, kernel, memory and driver version, so scripts do not have to parse a table.

The rest of this lesson looks one level lower, at tt-smi.

What tt-smi Does

The tt-smi command scans your system for connected Tenstorrent devices and displays their status, including:

Run the Command

This command will scan for connected Tenstorrent devices:

tt-smi

🔍 Detect Tenstorrent Hardware
VS Code
tt-smi

Understanding Your Hardware

After running tt-smi, you'll see information about your Tenstorrent hardware. To get structured output, use:

tt-smi -s

Example output (JSON format):

{
  "board_info": {
    "board_type": "n150",
    "coords": "0,0"
  },
  "telemetry": {
    "voltage": 0.8,
    "current": 25.3,
    "power": 20.24,
    "temperature": 45.0
  }
}

Hardware Types

Look for the board_type field to identify your hardware:

Wormhole™ Family (2nd Generation):

Blackhole® Family (Latest Generation):

Blackhole Architecture Equivalence: All Blackhole cards (p100, p150, p300/p300c) share the same instruction set and capabilities. Lessons supporting p100 will work on p300/p300c without modification.

TT-QuietBox Multi-Device Detection: If you have a TT-QuietBox Tower (4x p300c), tt-smi will show 4 devices:

Device 0: 0000:01:00.0 | P300c | FW 19.4.0.0
Device 1: 0000:02:00.0 | P300c | FW 19.4.0.0
Device 2: 0000:03:00.0 | P300c | FW 19.4.0.0
Device 3: 0000:04:00.0 | P300c | FW 19.4.0.0

tt-smi enumerates each as a separate p300c device, but on a TT-QuietBox 2 they're wired into one four-chip ring mesh (P300_X2), not 4 independent cards. For single-chip lessons, use device 0 (treat it like a p100). For multi-chip lessons, all 4 devices are available, and workloads scale near-linearly across the mesh.

Quick Hardware Check

Extract just your hardware type:

tt-smi -s | grep -o '"board_type": "[^"]*"'

Output: "board_type": "n150"

Save this for later lessons! You'll need to know your hardware type when configuring models and servers.

Expected Output

When you run tt-smi, you should see:

For Wormhole hardware (n150, n300, T3000):

Device 0: Wormhole
Board Type: n150
PCIe: Bus 0x01, Device 0x00
Firmware Version: 1.2.3
Temperature: 45°C
Power: 20W

For Blackhole hardware (p100, p150):

Device 0: Blackhole
Board Type: p100
PCIe: Bus 0x01, Device 0x00
Firmware Version: 2.0.1
Temperature: 42°C
Power: 18W

Multiple devices:

Device 0: Wormhole (n150)
Device 1: Wormhole (n150)
Device 2: Wormhole (n150)
Device 3: Wormhole (n150)

Troubleshooting: No Hardware Detected

Don't worry if tt-smi doesn't detect your hardware immediately. You can usually fix this easily. Try these steps:

Check 1: Hardware Connection

Verify card is detected by PCIe:

lspci | grep -i tenstorrent

Expected output:

01:00.0 Processing accelerators: Tenstorrent Inc. Device [model]

If nothing appears:

Check 2: Driver Installation

Check if tt-smi is installed:

which tt-smi

Expected: /usr/local/bin/tt-smi or similar path

If not found:

Check 3: Permissions

Try with sudo:

sudo tt-smi

If this works but tt-smi alone doesn't:

Fix permissions (Linux):

sudo usermod -a -G tenstorrent $USER
# Log out and back in for group changes to take effect

Check 4 (Optional): Device Reset

Optional — recovery step only. Skip this unless a device shows up in tt-smi but reports errors or won't initialize. A healthy device does not need a reset.

If device appears but shows errors:

tt-smi -r

What this does:

If reset fails:

# Full state cleanup (requires sudo)
sudo pkill -9 -f tt-metal
sudo pkill -9 -f vllm
sudo rm -rf /dev/shm/tenstorrent* /dev/shm/tt_*
tt-smi -r

Still Having Issues?

Check system logs:

dmesg | grep -i tenstorrent

Get help:

Common issues:

TT-QuietBox Multi-Device Systems

What is TT-QuietBox? TT-QuietBox is a Tenstorrent multi-chip development system. The TT-QuietBox 2 (Blackhole Tower) contains two dual-ASIC p300c boards — 4 Blackhole chips total.

Key Concepts:

TT-QuietBox 2 is one 4-chip ring mesh, not 4 independent devices

Device Enumeration:

tt-smi -s  # Shows all 4 devices
{
  "device_0": {"board_type": "p300c", "pci_bus": "0000:01:00.0"},
  "device_1": {"board_type": "p300c", "pci_bus": "0000:02:00.0"},
  "device_2": {"board_type": "p300c", "pci_bus": "0000:03:00.0"},
  "device_3": {"board_type": "p300c", "pci_bus": "0000:04:00.0"}
}

Configuration for Lessons:

Single-Chip Lessons (Most lessons):

Multi-Device Lessons (Advanced):

Troubleshooting:

What You Learned

Next: Verify Your Setup →

Learn More