INFORMATION SHEET No. 7.

1-1 PARTS OF MOTHERBOARD

Learning Objectives:

After reading this Information Sheet you should be able to:

1. Identify the parts of motherboard and its function.

Parts of Motherboard

Expansion Slot
Alternatively referred to as a bus slot or expansion port, an expansion slot is
connection or port located inside a computer on the motherboard or riser board
that allows a computer hardware expansion card to be connected.
Below is a listing of some of the expansion slots commonly found in IBM
compatible computers, as well as other brands of computers and the devices
commonly associated with those slots.

Computer expansion slots

AGP - Video card AMR - Modem, Sound card
CNR - Modem, Network card, Sound card
EISA - SCSI, Network card, Video card
ISA - Network card, Sound card, Video card
PCI - Network card, SCSI, Sound card
PCI Express - Video card, Modem, Sound Card, Network Card
VESA - Video card

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Many of the above expansion card slots are obsolete. You're most likely only
going to encounter AGP, PCI, and PCI Express when working with computers
today.
Does a laptop have an expansion slot?
Laptops do not have expansion slots like what has been explained above.
However, some laptops do have PC Cards that can be inserted into the side of
the laptop or the option for an express card to be added.

PCI
Short for Peripheral Component Interconnect, PCI was introduced by Intel in
1992. The PCI bus came in both 32-bit (133MBps)
and 64-bit versions and was used to attach
hardware to a computer. Although commonly used
in computers from the late 1990s to the early
2000s, PCI has since been replaced with PCI
Express.
Revisions came in 1993 to version 2.0, and in 1995
to PCI 2.1, as an expansion to the ISA bus. Unlike
ISA and other earlier expansion cards, PCI follows
the PnP specification and therefore did not require
any jumpers or dip switches.

AGP
Short for Accelerated Graphics Port, AGP is an advanced port designed for
Video cards and 3D accelerators. Designed by Intel and introduced in August of
1997, AGP introduces a dedicated point-to-point channel that allows the
graphics controller direct access to the system memory. Below is an illustration
of what the AGP slot may look like on
your motherboard. Today, AGP has
been replaced by PCI Express.

PCI Express
Originally known as 3rd Generation I/O (3GIO), PCI Express, or PCIe, was
approved as a standard on July 2002 and is a computer
bus found in computers. PCI Express is a serial bus
designed to replace PCI and AGP and is available in
different formats: x1, x2, x4, x8, x12, x16, and x32. The
data transmitted over PCI-Express is sent over wires
called lanes in full duplex mode (both directions at the
same time). Each lane is capable of around 250MBps
and the specification can be scaled from 1 to 32 lanes. With 16 lanes PCI
Express supports a bandwidth of up to 4,000MBps in both directions. Below
are some graphic illustrations of what the PCI Express would look like on the
motherboard.

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Case fan
Alternatively referred to as a system fan, a case fan is located inside a
computer, attached to the front or back of
its case. Case Fans help bring cool air into
and blow hot air out of the case. They are
available in a wide variety of sizes, but
80mm, 92mm, and 120mm (12cm) with a
width of 25mm are the most common. Above
is an example of how a computer case fan
may look.

Heat sink
A heat sink is an electronic device that incorporates either a fan or a peltier
device to keep a hot component such as a
processor cool.

4-Pin (P4) Power Connector

The P4 connector is a 12V power supply cable like that

shown in the picture used with motherboards that have
an Intel Pentium 4 processor. The P4 cable has two
black wires that serve as a ground and two yellow wires
that are +12VDC and is connected to a four-pin
connection on the motherboard.

Inductor (Coil)
Short for electromagnetic coil, a coil is conductor wire
such as copper in a cylindrical form around an iron core
that creates an inductor or electromagnet to store magnetic
energy. Coils are often used to remove power spikes and
dips from power.

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Capacitor

A capacitor is a component made of two or sets of two

conductive plates with a thin insulator between them and
wrapped in a ceramic and plastic container. When the
capacitor receives a direct current (DC), a positive charge
builds up on one of the plates (or set of plates) while a
negative charge builds up on the other. This charge, which
is measured in microfarads on a computer capacitor,
remains in the capacitor until it is discharged. The image
above is an example of what a capacitor may look like on a
computer motherboard.

CPU Socket
CPU socket or processor socket is a connection that allows a computer
processor to be connected to a motherboard.

Northbridge
Alternatively referred to as the PAC (PCI/AGP
Controller) and nb, the northbridge is an
integrated circuit responsible for communications
between the CPU interface, AGP, and the memory.
Unlike the Southbridge the Northbridge is directly
connected to these components and acts like a
"bridge" for the Southbridge chip to communicate
with the CPU, RAM, and graphics controller.
Today, the Northbridge is a single chip that is
North of the PCI bus, however, early computers
may have had up to three separate chips that made up the Northbridge.

Screw hole (Standout)

Sometimes referred to as a standoff and spacer,

standouts are small metal or plastic screws that
attaches to a computer case and holds the
motherboard to the case.

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Memory slot

A memory slot, memory socket, or RAM slot is what allows computer

memory (RAM) to be inserted
into the computer. There may
be 2 to 4 memory slots
(sometimes more on high-end
motherboards) and are what
determine the type of RAM used
with the computer. The most
common types of RAMs are
SDRAM and DDR for desktop computers and SODIMM for laptop computers,
each having various types and speeds.

Super I/O
Short for super input/output or Super I/O, SIO is an integrated circuit on a
computer motherboard that handles the slower and less
prominent input/output devices shown above. When the
Super input/output was first introduced in the late 1980's
it was found on an expansion card, later this chip was
embedded into the motherboard and communicated over
the ISA bus. As ISA began to no longer be used with
computers SIO communicated over the PCI bus. Today,
super I/O communicates through the Southbridge and is
still used with computers to support older legacy devices.

Floppy connection
The floppy channel, FDD header, or floppy connection is where the floppy
drive connects to the computer motherboard.

ATA (IDE) disk drive primary connection Short for Integrated Drive
Electronics or IBM Disc Electronics, IDE is more commonly known as ATA or
Parallel ATA (PATA). It is a standard interface
for IBM compatible hard drives and CD or DVD
drives. IDE is different than SCSI and
Enhanced Small Device Interface (ESDI)
because its controllers are on each drive,
meaning the drive can connect directly to the
motherboard or controller. IDE and its updated
successor, Enhanced IDE (EIDE), are common
drive interfaces found in IBM compatible
computers.
Below is a picture of the IDE connector on the
back of a hard drive, a picture of what an IDE cable looks like, and the IDE
channels it connects to on the motherboard.

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24-pin ATX power Supply connector
It connects a power supply to an ATX style
motherboard. A power supply with a 24-pin
connector can be used on a motherboard with a 20-
pin connector by leaving the four additional pins
disconnected. However, if you have a 24-pin
connection on your motherboard all 24-pins need to
be connected. If you are using a power supply that
does not have a 24-pin connector, you need to
purchase a new power supply.

Serial ATA connections

Short for Serial ATA, SATA 1.0 was first released in August 2001 and is a
replacement for the Parallel ATA interface used in IBM compatible computers.
Serial ATA can deliver 1.5 Gbps (1500 MBps) of performance to each drive
within a disk array. It has the benefit of being backwards-compatible with ATA
and ATAPI devices, and offers a thin, small cable solution. This cable helps
make a much easier cable routing and offers better airflow in the computer
when compared to the earlier ribbon cables used with ATA drives.

Coin cell battery (CMOS backup battery)

CMOS coin cell battery used to power the CMOS memory.

Alternatively referred to as a Real-Time Clock (RTC), Non-Volatile RAM
(NVRAM) or CMOS RAM, CMOS is short for Complementary Metal-Oxide
Semiconductor. CMOS is an on-board, battery powered semiconductor chip
inside computers that stores information. This information ranges from the
system time and date to system hardware settings for your computer.

RAID

Short for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, RAID is an assortment of

hard drives connected and setup in ways to help protect or speed up the
performance of a computer's disk storage. RAID is commonly used on servers
and high-performance computers.

System panel connectors

Alternatively referred to as the fpanel or front panel connector,
the system panel connector or system panel header controls a
computer power button, reset button, and LED's. The black or
white wire is the ground (GND) wire, and the colored wire is the
powered wire. The cables, colors, and connections vary depending
on the computer case and motherboard you have.

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FWH
Short for Firmware Hub, FWH is part of the Intel
Accelerated Hub Architecture that contains both the system
BIOS and integrated video BIOS on one component. The
Firmware Hub connects directly to the I/O Controller Hub
(ICH) without requiring an ISA bus. The picture shows an
example of an FWH chip in a PLCC (Plastic Leadless Chip
Carrier).
Southbridge
The Southbridge is an IC on the motherboard responsible for the hard drive
controller, I/O controller and integrated hardware. The Southbridge gets its
name for commonly being south of the PCI bus.

Serial port connector

An asynchronous port on the computer
used to connect a serial device to the
computer and capable of transmitting one
bit at a time. Serial ports are typically
identified on IBM compatible computers as
COM (communications) ports.

USB headers
The 1394 header and USB header is a pin connection found
on a computer motherboard that allow additional 1394 and
USB connections to be added to the computer. For example, if
you wanted to add additional USB connections to the front of
your computer a USB add-on could be added into one of the
drive bays and connected to the USB header.
As can be seen in the picture, both the 1394 and USB headers
have nine pins and closely resemble each other. Every
motherboard is different, the 1394 or USB header on your
motherboard may only have four or five pins.
Caution: Plugging a 1394 header cable into the USB header connection or the
USB header cable into a 1394 connection will damage a motherboard. Always
consult your motherboard manufacturer manual before connecting anything to
the 1394 or USB header.

Jumpers

Jumpers allow the computer to close an electrical circuit, allowing the

electricity to flow certain sections of the circuit board. Jumpers
consist of a set of small pins that can be covered with a small
plastic box (jumper block). Jumpers are used to configure the
settings for computer peripherals such as the motherboard,
hard drives, modems, sound cards, and other components.

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Integrated circuit
Alternatively referred to as a bare chip, monolithic
integrated circuit, or microchip, IC is short for
Integrated Circuit or Integrated Chip. The IC is a
package containing many circuits, pathways,
transistors, and other electronic components all
working together to perform a particular function or a
series of functions. Integrated circuits are the building
blocks of computer hardware.

1394 headers
Alternatively referred to as IEEE-1394, FireWire is a digital bus with a
bandwidth of 400-800 Mbps. It can handle up to 63 units on the same bus and
is hot swappable. It was first developed by Apple in 1995.

SPDIF
Short for Sony and Phillips Digital Interconnect Format, the S/PDIF or
SPDIF interface transmits digital audio in a
compressed form between audio equipment and home
theatre systems. The S/PDIF interface can utilize a
coaxial cable or a fiber optic cable to transmit the
audio. Common equipment to use this interface are
DVD Players and CD Players, connecting to a home
theatre system for Dolby Digital or DTS surround
sound. High quality sound cards and laptops also have
this connector. In the first picture to the right, is an
example of what the SPDIF connector may look like on your computer
motherboard.

The audio transmitted is through the S/PDIF interface is

defined by the IEC 61937 standard. The common formats
transmitted are the 48 kHz sample rate (used in DAT) and
the 44.1 kHz sample rate (used in CD audio). In the picture
below, is an example of a fiber optic connection on the back
of audio equipment.

CD-IN

Alternatively referred to as the optical drive audio

connector, the CD-IN is a four-pin connector found on a
computer's motherboard or sound card that connects an
optical drive's audio.