The 5 Basic Components

Basic Components

Basic Components A Personal Computer is made of several distinct electronic components that all function together in order to accomplish some useful task.

Most computers today are modular meaning; they have parts that can be removed and replaced with a component of a similar function in order to improve performance.

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Goal In this module, students will learn about the components that make up a PC, what their functions are, and how they will work together inside a PC. Objectives

After this session, the students must be able to:

Identify the names, purpose, and characteristics of system modules.

Recognize the different system modules by sight and/or definition.

Identify the names, purposes, and performance characteristics of common ports, cables, and their associated connectors.

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WIIFM

What gives?
These components are the basic building blocks of a typical computer. Knowing all those items would give you a trouble-free PC (Yeah, Friendster all you want without interruptions).

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So Show me the Stuff! Tell me what you know about these things: The Chassis Power Supply Motherboard Processor/CPU Memory Hard Drives Floppy Drives CD/DVD Drives and Burners Memory Keys Video Cards NICs Modems Sound Cards Monitors and LCDs Others?

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The Chassis or Case A computer chassis/case is the enclosure that encases all the components of the computer. All the major parts are mounted inside of the chassis/case.

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Cases are categorized in two ways:

Physical Size
The type of Motherboard (AT, ATX or BTX) Case Styles vary in the way they normally sit:

Vertically
Horizontally

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Full Tower: Approximately 20 to 25 inches tall, lots of drive bays, lots of room.

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Mid Tower: Stands between 16 and 19 inches, has ample bays, and has sufficient legroom.

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Mini Tower: Really small. Compact. Cheap.

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Desktop: Horizontal in position, this is the ideal chassis for a typical office workstation. And its small.

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Slimline: Really small, but looks really nice. And expensive. And has a lot of disadvantages. But its really looks nice.

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Proprietary: Designed to work with only one particular Mobo. May come in any of the styles listed above.

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Power Supplies A really good and expensive system is next to nothing if it has no power supply. The device that feeds all the components with electricity is called the PS or PSU, short for Power Supply Unit. PSUs are rated in terms of Wattage, a higher rating means more devices like hard drives, optical drives, and better video cards can be attached to the system. Typical power supply ratings are the following:

200 watts
350 watts 500 watts

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There are several connectors present on a PSU, and they are categorized as:

Motherboard connector/s: Newer ATX power supplies have a single 24-pin or 20-pin connector. This feeds power to most of the components connected to the motherboard.

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Molex connector: This type of connector has 4 wires and often feeds power to optical drives, hard drives, certain adapters, and fans.

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Berg Connector: Also known as a floppy drive power connector. This smaller plug also has 4 wires that feeds the same amount of electricity as a regular Molex connector but is used mostly for Floppy Drives.

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P4 12-Volt Connector: This square plug with 4 wires is used to feed external power to most Pentium 4 Motherboards.

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Motherboards aka System Board, Main Board, Planar

The motherboard is the primary printed circuit board in a PC. All of the basic circuitry and components required for a PC to function are either contained in or attached to the motherboard. The motherboard typically contains the system bus, processor and coprocessor sockets, memory sockets, serial and parallel ports, expansion slots, and peripheral controllers. The motherboard may be alternatively referred to as the mainboard, system board, or even maincard or mothercard, but regardless of what you call it, it is the central component that enables all of the other parts of a computer to mesh.

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Types of Mother Boards Integrated: Most of the components that would otherwise be installed as expansion cards are builtin the main board. Nonintegrated: All major components are installed in the computer as an expansion card. Examples would be Video Cards, Sound Cards, NICs.

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Motherboard Form Factors

The form factor of the motherboard describes its general shape, what sorts of cases and power supplies it can use, and its physical organization. For example, a company can make two motherboards that have basically the same functionality but that use a different form factor, and the only real differences will be the physical layout of the board, the position of the components, etc. In fact, many companies do exactly this, they have for example a baby AT version and an ATX version.

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AT: Stands for Advanced Technology

A design used for older motherboards. Has two separate AT power connectors.

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ATX: Stands for Advanced Technology Extension

Used by most modern motherboards. This design allows effective placements of all the peripherals.

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NLX: Stands for New Low-profile Extension - A form factor used for low profile cases
Most of the expansion slots are located on a different riser card to conserve space.

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BTX: Stands for Balanced Technology Extended - A form factor that was intended to replace the aging ATX Enchancements:
Low profile Thermal Design Structural Design

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System Board Components

Expansion Slots
Probably the most visible component of the motherboard An opening in a computer where a circuit board can be inserted to add new capabilities to the computer. We have 4 major types of Expansion Slots; ISA, PCI, AGP, and PCI-X.

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ISA: Industry Standard Architecture

These are usually long and black slots and are slower than the other expansion slots. Bandwidths would be from 8 to 16 Bits and the speed would be around 8 to 10 MHz.

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PCI: Peripheral Component Interconnect.

These are easily recognizable since most motherboards have 3 or more and theyre usually colored white. Faster than an ISA slot. Bandwidth would be 32-bits and speed is 66 MHz. PCI-X is PCI Express, gave more throughput speed and was backward compatible with the earlier versions of PCI.

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AGP: Accelerated Graphics Port

Replaced the PCI slot for Video Cards. AGP slots are generally faster because they are directly connected to the CPU and the memory. They are short and brown. Bandwidth would be 32 Bits at variable speeds. Speeds are stated below.

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AGP Flavors

AGP Flavor AGP 1X AGP 2X

Width

Speed

Throughput 266MB/S 533MB/S

AGP 4X
AGP 8X

32 Bit

66 MHz

1066MB/S
2133MB/S

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AGP Flavors

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These new slots will eventually replace all AGP and PCI slots. Combining the technology for PCI and AGP, PCI-X gives slots their own bus, own throughput and own speed. Throughput speeds are faster because the bandwidth is equal to 64 Bits.

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Memory Slots -Slots used for RAM (Random Access Memory) modules -There are different slots depending on the speed of the memory module and the type of motherboard.

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SIMMs

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DIMMs

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RIMMs

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SIMM Single Inline Memory Module Generally slower, usually 32-bits Used in older Pentium systems

Usually installed in pairs

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DIMM Dual Inline Memory Module 64-bits Most DIMMs have 168 and 184 pins (SDRAM and DDR)

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RIMM Rambus Used for earlier Pentium IVs Must be installed in pairs and/or with CRIMMS

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CMOS
Complimentary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor, used to configure various hardware options of the motherboard. Contains settings for: Date, Time, Hard Drive configuration, Memory, BIOS options, Jumpers and DIP switches

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BIOS chip
Basic Input/Output System. Special memory chip that contains the BIOS software that tells the processor how to interact with the rest of the hardware. Software can be seen through the System Setup Program

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Different socket types and the processors they support: Socket 4: Pentium 60/66

Socket 5: Pentium 75-133

Socket 7: Pentium 75-MMX, AMD K6 family Socket 8: Pentium Pro

Slot 1: Pentium II and III, Celeron (through SSAs)

Slot 2: Xeon Slot A: Athlon Socket 370: Pentium III, Celeron Socket A (Socket 462): AMD Athlon and Duron

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Processor Sockets 4 types of sockets: The LIF, ZIF, SECC/SEPP and Socket T LIF Low Insertion Force, Used by older processors Inserting processors required a certain amount of force

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ZIF Zero Insertion Force Used by most processors Processors required a locking mechanism

SECC/SEPP Single Edge Contact Cartridge/ Single Edge Processor Package Used by slotted processors Processors usually looks like a cartridge

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CPU slots or sockets
A slot or socket where the processor is inserted

Sockets generally are flat and have several rows of holes.

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Slots look like Expansion Card Slots e.g. AGP

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Socket 423: Early Pentium IV

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Socket 478: Pentium IV

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Socket 603: Newer Pentium IV

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Socket 745: AMD Athlon 64

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Socket 939/940: AMD FX and Opteron

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Socket T Pins are on the processor socket Has 775 pins on the motherboard Used by newer systems There is a locking bracket

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Power connector, HD Connector and Floppy Drive Connector

On-board disk drive connectors Often referred to as drive interfaces. Two types; Floppy Drive Interface and the Hard Disk Interface.

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Motherboard Architecture
The Motherboard is the one of the largest components of a computer. Almost all the parts attach to the system board; hence, this can be referred to as the spine of the computer.

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Aside from the various connectors and ports, the motherboard also has specialized components: Chipset Memory Slot Types Communication Ports Processor Sockets Cache Memory Bus Architecture BIOS

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Chipset A collection of chips or circuits that perform interface and peripheral functions for the processor Dictates how a motherboard talks to the installed peripherals

Chipsets are usually given a name to identify the brand, the type of processor supported, and the capabilities. Can be made up of one or several integrated chips: A Northbridge and a Southbridge

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Northbridge chipsets are responsible for the high-speed peripheral components. Examples would be AGP, CPU to Memory communications. Performance of the PC relies on the performance of the Northbridge.
Note: Communication between the processor and the motherboard memory is measured by the Front Side Bus (FSB) Speed. The FSB is a signal pathway between the CPU and the memory.

Southbridge chipsets are responsible for supporting the rest of the peripherals on the motherboard (mostly slower).

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South Bridge

North Bridge

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Cache Memory Memory located inside/on the processor to speed up the processing of frequently accessed information. Increases the performance of the system Two types: Level 1 and Level 2 (L1 and L2)
Note: The L1 Cache resides in the CPU and is part of the CPU Circuitry, the L2 on the other hand is not a part of the CPU Circuitry although it is part of the CPU package. Since the L2 cache is not a part of the CPU circuitry, its capacity is higher than the L1. When purchasing a CPU these days, part of the specs that PC parts retailers would post is the L2 cache.

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Bus Architectures
A bus is a set of signal pathways that allow information and signals to travel between peripherals. Buses are generally made up of 3 pathways: Power, Data, Address.

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3 Types of Bus Address Bus: A collection of wires connecting the CPU with
main memory that is used to identify particular locations (addresses) in main memory. Examples would be Input/Output (I/O) Address Bus and Direct Memory Access Address Bus (DMA)
*DMA (Direct Memory Access) Channels allow devices to bypass the processor and write directly to the memory. *I/O Addresses are unique lines assigned to several devices so that it can communicate with the CPU. Can be compared with mailboxes.

Data Bus: Actual bus where data passes through External Bus: Allows the CPU to communicate with the rest of
the components on the System Board. Type of buses used by Expansion slots, for example, ISA Bus and PCI Bus.

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Request Interrupt Lines (IRQ) are direct connections to the processor. It is used to get the attention of the CPU. 15 IRQ Lines assigned to different devices. Newer devices can share IRQs. Bus Mastering allows certain devices to directly communicate with other devices

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Common External Busses ISA, PCI, AGP, PCI-X USB
Universal Serial Bus. Allows up to 127 external devices to be connected on a single port. Has 2 flavors: USB 1.0 and 2.0.

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Processors
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of the computer. It is responsible for doing all the computational calculations within the computer

Clock Speed
The frequency at which the processor executes instructions Measured in millions of cycles per second (Megahertz MHz) The Frequency is generated by a clock (quartz crystal) that vibrates every time electricity passes through. This pulse is known as a clock tick.

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Processor Form Factors PGA: Pin Grid Array
Uses the socket connector and the Processor or the Socket has Pins

SECC: Single Edge Contact Cartridge

The processor is attached to a small board (cartridge). Covered by 2 shells, the inner layer (metal shell) directly protects the core and the outer plastic shell protects the whole board.

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SEP: Single Edge Processor

Similar to SECC but does not have the outer shell

SECC2
Similar to SECC but instead of metal heatsinks, the processor uses an aluminum heatsink. Used by later Pentium IIs and early Pentium IIIs.

PPGA: Plastic Pin Grid Array

Similar to the PGA but the pins are arranged so that the processor will only fit one way.

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FC-PGA: Flip-Chip Plastic Grid Array

The processor core is flipped FC-PGA2
Similar to FC-PGA however the core is protected by a metal plate called the Heat Spreader

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Memory Modules Each motherboard supports a memory type that is based on the Front Side Bus Speed and the memory form factor. Generally, the memory runs at the same speed of the FSB. Example: If the Mobo FSB is 100MHz and the memory is rated at 133MHz, the memory will run at 100MHz. If the FSB is 133MHz and the memory is rated at 100MHz, the system will either operate slower or the system will not POST at all. Hint: Memory Module should be equal or higher than the motherboard (FSB) in terms of speed.

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RAM Random Access Memory is a type of temporary storage medium that uses the presence or the absence of a magnetic or electrical charge to store information in binary format. Most often, RAM is just called memory. There are many types of RAM: SRAM, DRAM, and the VRAM

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SRAM (Static RAM)

Called static because the information does not need to be constantly upgraded
SRAMs are faster and more expensive than an ordinary memory module Used as Cache Memory

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DRAM (Dynamic RAM)

Information is stored in capacitors

Requires a constant recharge (or refresh) to maintain information

There are 5 types of DRAM:

oFPM (Fast Page Mode) was used during the time of the 486 and some early Pentiums

oEDO (Extended Data Output) was introduced in 1995. This type of memory is 10 to 15% faster than the FPM.

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oSDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) was introduced in 1996. The speed of the memory was synchronized with the Front Side Bus to prevent system lags. Memory was identified based on the speed. (PC100, PC133) oDDR-SDRAM (Double Data Rate SDRAM) is an improvement to the existing SDRAM design. The speed of the memory depends on the FSB and with DDR, data execution was doubled per clock cycle (double the rate of the standard SDRAM). DDR memory types are identified based on their transfer rates (64bits X 2 X Bus Speed = Memory Type). oRDRAM (Rambus) is a proprietary memory technology developed by Rambus and Intel. Works like DDRSDRAM.

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VRAM (Video RAM) A type of memory used by the Video Adapter to store image data for processing.

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Characteristics of RAM Bit Size oIndividual memory chips that make up a memory module can be identified by their bit size oOlder memory types have either 8 or 32 bits oDIMMs are 64-bits

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Parity
oA simple form of error checking oEven and Odd

ECC (Error Correcting Code)

oUses a set of instructions that are embedded on a separate chip

oUsed to correct errors

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Basic Components A Personal Computer is made of several distinct electronic components that all function together in order to accomplish some useful task. Most computers today are modular meaning; they have parts that can be removed and replaced with a component of a similar function in order to improve performance.

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Goal In this module, students will learn about the components that make up a PC, what their functions are, and how they will work together inside a PC. Objectives

After this session, the students must be able to:

Identify the names, purpose, and characteristics of system modules.

Recognize the different system modules by sight and/or definition.

Identify the names, purposes, and performance characteristics of common ports, cables, and their associated connectors.