Hot, Neutral, and Ground

A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining 1

Your PC, Fifth Edition
Hot, Neutral, and Ground

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Your PC, Fifth Edition
Switch Mode Power Supply
• Introduction

– The SMPS is used to give DC voltage to the components

present in the motherboard.

– It is used to produce different DC voltages necessary to drive

the various components like the processor, the hard disk,
floppy drive, the processor fan etc

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 AC and DC
• Alternating current (AC)
Economical

• Direct current (DC)

• Required by most electronic devices.
• Computer power supply functions as both a
transformer and rectifier.

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Your PC, Fifth Edition
Computer Power Supply

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Your PC, Fifth Edition
Output DC Voltages In SMPS
• Various DC Voltages are

– +12V DC

– -12V DC

– +5V DC

– -5V DC

– +3.3V DC

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 Output DC Voltages
• +12 v
+12 V is used to drive the disk drive motors. It is also used by
components like fans and other cooling devices.

• -12 V
– The RS-232C interface of the serial port follows the negative logic.
– This voltage is provided to the motherboard to power up the serial
port

• +5 V
– All the integrated components of the motherboard operate with +5V
– Hence the motherboard is provided with +5V power supply

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 Output DC Voltages
• -5 v It is used for BIOS

• +5 V Pwr_OK (Power Good Signal)

– After a stabilized output is obtained power can be given to the

processor and the other components present in the motherboard.

– To prevent the computer from operating prematurely a power good

signal is generated to indicate that the power obtained is proper and
can be given to other devices on the motherboard.

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Power Connectors on AT and ATX
Boards

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Your PC, Fifth Edition