We hope you will not look like …
… when you will open a computer
Chipset
• Microchip that support the CPU. The chipset
usually contains several controllers that govern
how information travels between the
processor and other components.
RAM
• SDRAM - Synchronous DRAM - SDRAM synchronizes itself with the
CPU's bus.
• DDRAM - Double Data Rate-Synchronous DRAM - Type of SDRAM
supports data transfers on both edges of each clock cycle
• RDRAM – Rambus DRAM - fastest current memory technologies used
by PCs transfers data at up to 800 MHz while SDRAM can deliver data at a
maximum speed of about 100 MHz
Processor
(CPU)
• This is a place where CPU should be put. Besides,
cooler will be installed over CPU. Cooler is a necessary
device since CPU produce a lot of heating and could
burn out itself without cooling. Usually cooler is a fan that
produced most of noise you hear when computer works.
Notes
• Chipset always defines a range of CPUs you can use.
So, if a chipset doesn’t support the latest Intel CPU or
AMD CPU you will be able to use such CPU (of course
you will be able to install that, but it will not work(.
• DDRAM/SDRAM/RDRAM – Those types of memory are
very different. Only one type is supported by a
motherboard. Moreover any of them has different
speeds. If you will try to use a memory with bigger speed
then usually this one will work with reduced speed (as
much as motherboard can support – read provide).
HDD
CD-ROM
Floppy…
• HDD/CDROM
– IDE: Integrated Drive Electronics. An IDE interface is an interface for
mass storage devices, in which the controller is integrated into the disk
or CD-ROM drive.
• ATA 33/66/100 – Advanced Technology Attachment disk drive
implementation (specification). Number means data transfer rate
speed in MBps
• Floppy has a special connector which is shorter.
More about mass storage
devices’ connectors
• Notes on IDE: Devices are connected to motherboard using a special cable on
which up to 2 devices can be put. The speed on this cable equals to minimum
between maximum speeds supported by connected devices and motherboard.
So, if motherboard enables using ATA-100 as well as HDD but CDROM,
located on the same cable, enables only ATA-33 (CD and DVD devices work
only with ATA-33) then speed of connection between motherboard and HDD or
CDROM will be only 33 MBps. Therefore CDROM and HDD usually is not
connected to motherboard by the same cable.
• SCSI - Small Computer System Interface - is a parallel interface standard. SCSI
interfaces provide for faster data transmission rates (up to 80 megabytes per
second) than standard serial and parallel ports. In addition, you can attach
many devices to a single SCSI port, so that SCSI is really an I/O bus rather
than simply an interface.
• SATA - Serial ATA – extended ATA with speed up to 150 MBps.
• SAS - Serial Attached SCSI: extension of SCSI. These include drive
addressability of up to 16,256 devices per port and reliable point-to-point serial
connections at speeds of up to 3G bps.
Expansion
slots
PCI / ISA
• PCI - Peripheral Component Interconnect, a local bus standard developed
by Intel Corporation (interconnection system between a microprocessor and
attached devices ). Can support also older standard ISA
• ISA - Industry Standard Architecture. The original specification for the
EXPANSION SLOTS used on the first IBM PC.
Expansion
slots
AGP
• AGP - An interface specification from Intel that enables 3-D graphics to
display quickly on personal computers. AGP is based on PCI, but is
designed especially for the high throughput requirements of 3-D
graphics. Usually is colored to brown.
Battery
•
•
An element that is necessary to provide a power to store user settings made in
BIOS. For example a password.
BIOS - built-in software that determines what a computer can do without
accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required
to control the keyboard, display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and a
number of miscellaneous functions. So, it makes it possible for a computer to boot
itself.
SATA II
Serial Advanced
Technology
Attachment
The standard interface for SATA controllers is Advanced Host Controller
Interface (AHCI), which allows advanced features of SATA such as hot plug
and Native Command Queuing.
Features of SATA II devices and components (disk drives, adapters, port
multipliers and selectors, cabling and connectors) support 1.5 Gbps and 3
Gbps data transfer rates
PCI-E
PCI Express,
(PCIe)
PCI-E is based around serial links called lanes. The PCIe 1.1 specification
supports x1 (pronounced "by one"), x2, x4, x8, x16, and x32 lanes
In each lane, the most common version PCIe 1.1 carries 250 MB/s in each
direction