THE PARTS OF THE

COMPUTER
JUAN DIEGO MONCALEANO
JORGE IBAN POLOCHE
ISABEL CRISTINA OBANDO
 PPRINTER

Motherboar
d

SCANNER
 THE COMPUTER CASE
This is the part that holds all of the parts of a computer to make up the computer system.
It is usually designed in such a manner to make fitting a motherboard, wiring, and drives as
easy as possible. Some are designed so well that it is easy to make everything look tidy and
presentable too.

Cases come in all different sizes and shapes to accommodate various types of computer
components and satisfy the consumer’s needs.

Design elements can vary from being plain to highly elaborate. You can get a plain grey
desktop case or one with colored lighting everywhere to make it look spectacular.

Computer cases rely on computer fans inside them to create proper airflow to keep all the
internal parts cool and working reliably.

A computer case, like most things, varies in quality. You can get them made from cheap
metals or good quality materials that provide you with a sturdy design.
 THE MONITOR
A monitor is an output device used to visualize the graphics data sent from the computer’s GPU.
There are various types of monitors on the market. A LED (Light Emitting Diode) backlit LCD (Liquid
Crystal Display) monitor is the most commonly used with modern computers.
There are also various computer screen sizes with different aspect ratios. The aspect ratio is simply the
ratio between height and width.
For example, a 16:9 aspect ratio computer screen will have 16 parts wide to 9 parts in height.
There are also curved monitors, but they are more expensive computer screens.
Monitors also have a fast response time to keep up with the high demands required to eliminate delays
with user input for gaming.
 THE KEYBOARD
A keyboard is an input device that is one of the ways to communicate with a computer. Typing
a key from the keyboard sends a small portion of data to tell the computer which key was
pressed.
Once the computer receives input from the keyboard, it can use the keystrokes in digital form
to produce a specific task in any software that’s being used.

The computer system can use this information in many ways. An example could be a
command or a character that can be used in a document.
There are two main different types of keyboards. Mechanical and membrane types.
 THE MOUSE
A mouse is an input device that allows the user to move a pointer displayed on the monitor and
experience a more intuitive interaction with computer systems.
These days mice have more buttons than the common three.

However, the three main buttons allow the user to select, grab, scroll and access extra menus
and options.
A computer mouse is a handy pointing device can be wired or wireless. The latter obviously
requires batteries.
Optical mice of today allow for very accurate precision and smooth movement.
 THE SPEAKERS
Computer speakers can connect up to the sound card at the rear of the computer.
Another way they can be connected is by a monitor that already has built-in speakers.
Generally, the sound quality is poor from a monitor’s speakers. That’s why most people buy a
set of computer speakers for their desk.

You can even connect up a 7.1 surround speaker system to certain sound cards.
This can add a nicer experience to gaming, playing music, or watching a film
 THE SCANNER
A scanner can take anything on paper and scan it to produce a replicated digital image.

This is also handy for saving physical photos you want to preserve.

Once the photo is stored digitally, it won’t decay as a physical photo does over time.

The flatbed scanner is the most commonly used today.

Many all-in-one devices, also known as multifunction devices, have printer and scanning
capabilities in one reasonably compact product.
 THE PRINTER
A printer can take an image sent by a computer and deliver it onto a sheet of paper.

It does this by using the data from the computer, and by either using toner or ink, it deposits
one of these in a controlled and accurate manner to form the image.
 THE PSU: POWER SUPPLY UNIT
A power supply unit mounts inside the computer case. This converts the AC mains supply
from the power cord from a wall socket and supplies the correct DC voltages to all the
components inside the computer.
It plays an important role in keeping a computer running reliably.
You get different wattage ratings for power supplies. The higher the wattage, the higher the
electrical current that can be made available to many other parts that need it in order to
function properly.
The higher you go in Watts, the more the power supply will be likely to cost.
A power supply also comes with its own cooling fan. This helps all the internal components to
stay cool when the power supply is subjected to bigger loads.
 THE GRAPHICS CARD
A graphics card is an output device that processes the data from the motherboard and sends the
appropriate information to the computer’s screen for display.
You can connect monitors to it using HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, or VGA connectors.
It can also be referred to as a video or display card.
A video card takes the burden of all the video processing from the main CPU. This gives a
computer a big boost in performance.
Because of the large processing requirements for a gaming GPU, fans are almost a given.
A video card plugs into a PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) slot on
the motherboard. It is a serial expansion bus slot capable of high bandwidth in two directions.
A graphics card has a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), the main part of a computer system
that requires cooling.
 RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM)
RAM or random access memory is a data storage device that can provide fast read and write
access. RAM is volatile memory, meaning it loses all the stored data when power is lost.
The RAM keeps data ready for the CPU to process. The RAM speed is a big contributor to the
overall speed of a computer system.
It plugs directly into a long slot that has contacts on either side of the slot.
It, too, has a clock speed, just like a processor. So, it can also be overclocked to deliver
increased performance beyond the intended specification.
Certain RAM modules are sold with a heat spreader. It helps dissipate the heat from the
individual memory ICs, keeping them cooler.
RAM has evolved like any other component. RAM used on the motherboard often uses DDR
(Double Data Rate) SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) type memory.
RAM Amount always comes in powers of 2, so you will always see numbers like 16GB,
32GB, or 64GB of RAM, to mention some examples of memory units
 CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT (CPU)
The CPU or central processing unit is basically like the brain of computer systems. It processes
all the information on a computational level.
It takes all the processes from the RAM and processes it to perform the tasks required by the
computer system.
The central processing unit is usually seated in a socket that utilizes a lever or a latch with a
hinged plate with a cut out in the center to secure the central processing unit onto the
motherboard.
It has many copper pads underneath it for the socket contacts to push up against them to make
electrical contact.
There are other ways CPUs can be attached to the motherboard.
 THE MOTHERBOARD
The motherboard is the main board that is screwed directly inside the computer case. All other
cards and everything else plugs directly into the motherboard, hence its name.
The CPU, RAM, drives, power supply, and more are connected to it.
Its function involves integrating all the physical components to communicate and operate
together.
A good motherboard offers a wide amount of connectivity options. It also has the least amount
of bottlenecks possible.
This allows all the components to operate efficiently and to fulfill their maximum potential as
they were designed to do.
Obviously, as the physical size is reduced, it begins to limit connectivity options and
functionality.
 THE HARD DRIVE
A hard drive is still found in most computers to this day. It’s usually a mechanical drive that stores all the
data.
Apart from storing data, it can also be used as a boot drive to run the operating system from it. You can install
operating systems of many different kinds depending on your needs.
An operating system is a software program that’s installed, making a computer useable like Microsoft
Windows, for example. The biggest vulnerability of a mechanical drive is its physically fragile nature.
One bump the wrong way can destroy a whole drive. A mechanical hard drive contains one or more platters
that spin anywhere between 5200 to 10000 RPM (revolutions per minute).
The read and write heads are spaced only about 0.002 (51 micro M) inches away from the platter.
This gives you an idea about the physical limitations regarding its fragile nature.
Small areas on the platter can be arranged to represent a 1 or a 0. It can be changed using the drive head to
alter the material to represent the correct value magnetically. This is how to write data to the drive for storage.
• There are various categories of hard drives made for various real-world
applications.
• Some examples include:
• General use for desktops or laptop computers.
• Gaming optimized for desktops or laptop computers.
• General high capacity storage.
• NAS Devices.
• Servers.
• Video recording.
 THE SSD: SOLID STATE DRIVE

A mechanical drive has a cheaper gigabyte to dollar ratio.

However, the SSD is a high-performance drive. It’s fast and cannot be as easily damaged by
dropping it or taking a few bumps.