Computer Literacy

A look at the brains of the computer,

the motherboard, and its associated
components.
Overview
1. Inside a PC
2. The Motherboard the 'brains'
3. RAM
4. ROM types of memory
5. CMOS Memory
6. The CPU the processor
7. Expansion Slots
8. Booting the Computer

2
 Inside a PC
CD-ROM
Power drive
supply
Hard disk
drive
Mother
board Floppy
disk drive

Sound/network
cards
Wires and
ribbon cables
3
 Motherboards
House the CPU
Allow devices to communicate with it and each other
Most popular: ATX
ATX
More power-management features
Support faster systems
Easier to install
Selection of motherboard determines capabilities and
limitations of the system

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 Form Factor
Motherboard form factor
Determines the size of the board
Drives selection of power supply, case, CPU, cards
ATX: most popular motherboard form factor
BTX: the latest motherboard form factor
Three types of motherboards you can select:
A board providing the most room for expansion
A board suiting the computers current configuration
A board falling in between current and future needs
ATX Motherboard Parts
ATX Motherboard Standard
Printed Circuit Board
Expansion Slot ( PCI type )
Expansion slot or Expansion bus is the slot that enable the user
to add the adapter card for additional function to the system.
Peripheral Component Inter-Connect slots allow direct
interaction between secondary H/W and CPU

Ex.
-Sound card or Multimedia
- LAN card.
- Internal Modem card.
-TV tuner card.
-Additional hard disc controller card.
 AGP Port
AGP ( Accelerated Graphic Port ) port is a high speed data
transfer port, this port is used by the display adapter card that
demands so much data with in short period of time.
IO Connector/USB ports
Hard Drive Connection
There are two types of hard drive
connections that a computer could have:
Parallel ATA (PATA), also known as IDE,
and Serial ATA (SATA).

Serial ATA (SATA, abbreviated from Serial

AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface
that connects host bus adapters to mass
storage devices such as hard disk drives,
optical drives, and solid-state drives

Parallel ATA (PATA), originally AT

Attachment, is an interface standard for the
connection of storage devices such as hard
disk drives, floppy disk drives, and optical
disc drives in computers.
 Memory Socket( DIMM socket)
There are 3 types of memory that currently
popular used in the PC,

1. SD RAM
2. DDR RAM
3. Rambus-DRAM
or RDRAM
 Continue.
RDRAM Memory
-Used in Pentium 4 motherboard
-highest performance and is most
expensive.
DDR ram
-128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB.
-medium high performance and
medium price.

SDRAM
-lowest performance and lowest
price.
Data/Instruction Flow from RAM to Cache
 ROM

Read-Only Memory can

be read but not changed.

It is non-volatile storage: it remembers its contents

even when the power is turned off.

Some kinds of ROM are PROM, EPROM, EEPROM,

and CD-ROM.
 CMOS Memory

CMOS is a battery powered semiconductor chip which

the battery
stores information.
A computer needs a semi-permanent
way of keeping some start-up data
e.g. the current time, the no. of hard disks and type of
hard disks and boot sequence.
the data may need to be updated/changed

CMOS memory requires (very little) power to retain

its contents.
supplied by a battery on the motherboard
Retains data even when computer is turned off
BIOS
Its the first program that runs every time we turn on computer.
BIOS instructs the computer on how to perform a number of
basic functions such as booting and keyboard control.
It also provides a way for configuring computer hardware.
Hardware like hard drive, floppy drive, optical
drive, CPU, memory, etc.
On starting computer we see message like Press F2 for Setup
Non volatile
 CMOS Battery
This is a 3 volt battery, this
battery supplies the power
to CMOS ram for CMOS
ram to retain the
information during system
powered off, the battery
may be last for 5 or 6 years.
 CPU Socket
A CPU socket or slot is an electrical
component that attaches to a printed
circuit board (PCB) and is designed to
house a CPU (also called a
microprocessor).
It is a special type of integrated circuit
socket designed for very high pin counts.
CPU sockets on the motherboard can
most often be found in most desktop
and server computers (laptops typically
use surface mount CPUs), particularly
those based on the Intelx86 architecture.
The CPU

The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the chip on the

motherboard that acts as the "computer's brain "
it does calculations, and coordinates the other
motherboard components
CPU examples: the Pentium, the PowerPC chip

The CPU is also known as the processor or

microprocessor.
Different kind of CPU
Intel
Celeron Common
Pentium 4 features
Xeon
Clock rate >
AMD
2GHz
Duron
Athlon XP
Differences
Sempron Word Size
Athlon 64 Cache Memory
Size
Front Side Bus
No. of transistors
Some Processors (CPUs)

Pentium Chip

PowerPC Chip

Chip Fan
AMD Processors (continued)
The CPU and RAM Communication

The RAM The CPU

contains data processes data.
and programs.

The data bus transports the

processed data to the RAM so
it can be stored, displayed, or
output.
How CPU Works
The CPU in Action

The CPU
 Chip set is a set of IC.
Chipset
The combination of
the North and Southbridge
in a computer is Called
the chipset.
NB allows communication
between CPU,RAM,AGP
SB handles Secondary
H/W,BIOS,I/O,USB
The System Clock
The system clock sends out 'ticks' to control the timing
of all the motherboard tasks
e.g. it controls the speed of the data bus and the
instruction cycle

The time it takes to complete an instruction cycle is

measured in megahertz (MHz).
1 MHz = one million cycles per second
CPU Heat Sinks and Cooling Fans
Explore.
Hard disk and its connectivity to mother board??
Disk Drive Components and working??
Difference between SATA and PATA??
Power supply and power connectors??
What is North Bridge and South Bridge??
Discuss about Booting process ??