Mother Board Types

A motherboard form factor just describes the dimensions or size of the motherboard and what the layout of the motherboard components are. It is important to understand the different motherboard form factors, because you cannot take any motherboard and place it in a computer case. You must put an ATX board in an ATX case.

Full AT

The first type of motherboard that we want to talk about is the full AT motherboard. The full AT motherboard is 12 inches wide and 11 inches long. The full AT suffered from a problem with accessing some of the items on the motherboard because the drive bays hung over the motherboard. This situation made installation and troubleshooting of the components on the motherboard very difficult.

Another problem with the layout of the full AT board is that the expansion cards, once inserted into the systems, would cover the processor. This situation led to cooling problems due to the fact that ventilation was insufficient to keep the chip from overheating.

Baby AT

The baby AT system board form factor has been one of the most popular motherboard types until recent years. The baby AT board is 8.5 inches wide and 10 inches long. This motherboard can be easily recognized because it usually has a DIN keyboard connector in the top-right corner of the board.

The baby AT board was about two-thirds the size of the full AT board and incorporated a socket 7 ZIF slot for classic Pentium processors. The baby AT board usually had a mixture of ISA/EISA and PCI slots located on the system board and included a plug and play BIOS.

Take a minute to consider some of the key components on the baby AT motherboard The socket 7 ZIF slot is usually situated at the bottom of the motherboard where the processor is to be installed. Also notice the SIMM and DIMM sockets on the right side of the motherboard, which are used to house RAM memory. To the left of the SIMM and DIMM slots, are the primary and secondary EIDE controllers for connecting the hard drives to the board. To the left of the EIDE controllers, notice the types of expansion slots that are used: There are four PCI slots and three EISA slots. Above the PCI slots, there is a silver circle, which is the CMOS battery.

ATX

In 1995, Intel wanted a system board that would be used to support the Pentium II processor and the new AGP slot, so the ATX form factor was built. The ATX board is 7.5 inches wide and 12 inches long and has all the IO ports integrated directly into the board, including USB ports. The ATX board introduced a 100 MHz system bus, whereas older Pentium boards ran at 60/66 MHz and had one AGP slot for video cards. The ATX board also had soft power support, which meant that the system could be shut down by the operating system. The ATX form factor rotated the baby AT components by 90 degrees so that any cards inserted into the bus architectures would not cover the processor and prevent proper cooling.

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Mother Board

Mother Board is the important part of the processing unit. It is only the Mother Board which controls all the commands of the computer. Hence it is also popularly known as the BRAIN of the computer. They are made up of sheet of fiber glass.All the components of the computer are either installed on it or connected using the connecting wires.For the inter connection of the components, thin copper lines are impregnated during manufacturing of motherboard. These copper lines are mounted with printed circuits. Hence they may also be verified as printed circuit board.

The following are the list of spare parts mounted on the mother board :

1. Extension Slots :

• Central Processing Unit (CPU) slot.

• DIMM SLots

• AGP Slot

• PCI Slots 1,2,3

• ISA Slots 1,2

2. Connectors :

• AT Power Connector 12 Pins.

• ATX Power Connector 20 Sockets.

• Keyboard Connector 5 pins (Female).

• PS/2 Mouse Connector 6 pins.

• LPT-1 Parallel Port Connector For Printer.

• COM-1,COM-2 Serial Port COMA and COMB 10 Pins for Mouse.

• FDD-1 Floppy Drive Connectors 34 pins.

• IDE-1 Primary IDE Connector 40 pins.

• IDE-2 Secondary IDE Connector 40 pins.

• Hard Disk LED 1 & 3 IDE activity Connector 4 pins.

• TB LED turbo LED Switch lead 2 pins.

• RESET Re-Set-Switch lead 2 pins.

• KEYLOCK/Power LED -Keyboard lock switch 5 pins.

• SPEAKER - Speaker Connector 4 pins.

• JIR - 1 - Infrared mobile connector.

• USB - 1 Usb Port Connector.

• CPU FAN, Cpu fan Connector.

• FAN - 1, Extra Fan Connector.

• POWER ON, Power On Button Connector.

• J - 5 Digital Audio Input/ Output Connector 4 [ins.

• J - 4 CD ROM Audio Connector 4 pins.

• J - 3 CD ROM Audio Connector 4 pins.

• WON - 1 WAKE on LAN Connector 3 Pins.

• J - 6 Audio Connector.

• JMS - 1 IRQ 12 Selector for PS/2 Mouse.

• J - 7 On Board Sound Enabled/ Disabled Connector.

3. Jumpers :

• U8 Dip Switch for CPU Ratio Selection.

• JUBA - 1 COMS RAM (Normal or clear COMS Data) (Yellow Color selector).
  

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CPU Cabinet

Introduction : The CPU cabinet is made up of metal since it is lighter than any other materials such as wood. It comprises of many peripherals which are the most essential components of the computer. Hence it may also be verified as the Heart of the computer. All the connecting ports and slots are available only in this cabinet from which power is being passed from the power supply which is also available only in this cabinet.The Motherboard which is the brain of the computer is also placed inside the cabinet. Various other components that are available inside the cabinet are being discussed in the upcoming posts.

• Structure: The motherboard mounts into the case, and all the other internal components mount into either the motherboard or the case itself. The case must provide a solid structural framework for these components to ensure that everything fits together and works well.
• Protection: The case protects the inside of your system from the outside world, and vice-versa. Vice versa? Yes, although most people don't think about that. With a good case, the inside of your computer is protected from physical damage, foreign objects and electrical interference. Everything outside of your computer is protected from noise created by the components inside the box, and electrical interference as well. In particular, your system's power supply, due to how it works, generates a good deal of radio-frequency (RF) interference, which without a case could wreak havoc on other electronic devices nearby.

• Cooling: Components that run cool last longer and give much less trouble to their owner. Cooling problems don't announce themselves; you won't get a "System Cooling Error" on your screen, you'll get random-seeming lockups and glitches with various parts of your system. You'll also have peripherals and drives failing months or years before they do on your friend's computer, and you'll never even dream that poor cooling is the cause. Making sure that your system is cooled properly is one good way to save yourself time, trouble and money.

Note: A spacious, well laid-out case is a critical part of proper system cooling. Small cases require components to be packed close together, which worsens cooling in two ways. First, air flow through the case is reduced because it is blocked by the components. Second, the parts are closer together so there is less space for heat to radiate away from the devices that are generating it. This procedure has tips about how to properly lay out a new PC in the case.

• Organization and Expandability: The case is key to a physical system organization that makes sense. If you want to add a hard disk, CD-ROM, tape backup or other internal device to your PC, the case is where it goes. If your case is poorly designed or too small, your upgrade or expansion options will be limited.
• Aesthetics: The system case is what people see when they look at your computer. For some people this isn't important at all; for others it's essential that their machine look good, or at least fitsomewhat into their decor. In an office environment, PCs that all look different can give a work center a "hodge-podge" appearance that some consider unprofessional, for example.
• Status Display: The case contains lights that give the user information about what is going on inside the box (not a lot, but some). Some of these are built into the case and others are part of the devices that are mounted into the case.

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Hardware Components

Definition : Every physical part of the computer that can be seen and felt by touch is known as the Hardware components/Devices. They are technically referred as Peripherals of the computer.

These Peripherals can be classified into two major types according to their function.

• Input Devices and

• Output Devices

Input Devices : The hardware devices or the components which are used for giving data as commands or input are categorized under Input Devices. Example: Keyboard, mouse, Scanner etc.,

Output Devices : The hardware devices or the components which are used for displaying the output as either hard copy or soft copy are being categorized under Output Devices. Example: Monitor, Printer etc.,

Peripherals of the computer :

The following are the major hardware parts of the computer which are essential for the working of the computer.

• CPU Cabinet
• Mother Board
• Hard Disc
• CD Drive
• Floppy Drive
• RAM
• SMPS
• Processor
• Connecting Cables
• Bus Cables
  
• Monitor
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Speakers
• Mic
• Headphone
  
• Printer
  
• Scanner
• UPS
• Joy Stick
• Web Camera
• Modem
• Sound Card
• Graphics Card
• USB Port
• Extension Slot
• Cooler Fan
• Ethernet Device
• Blue tooth Device
• C MOS Battery
• Resistors
  
• Inductors
• transformer
• Diode Led
• Capacitor
• Fuse
  

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Introduction

Hi readers,
This blog contains a complete information about the computer and its hardware devices.The highlight of this blog is that it contains the entire information about the hardware peripherals of both Desktop Computer and the Laptops. It deals with the day today updates regarding the recent inventions and solutions for the problems occurring in the computer while working with it. If you start working on a computer and if it stops suddenly, then the situation becomes frustrating.If you have the knowledge of the working principles of the the peripherals of the computer, then it would be much easier to solve the problems by yourself immediately. thus you save the time and you can continue your work without any break.

Special Aspects:

• It deals with the problems being occurred frequently in the computer and the solutions that would rectify them which may be technically defined as TROUBLESHOOTING.
• It contains a detailed discussion about each and every hardware devices along with its performances.
• The blog contains the differences between the Desktop Computers and the Laptop.
• The recent best configuration of both the computers and the laptops will be posted along with its best market value separately for each and every hardware component particularly for the Desktop's.
• This blog also contains the best THIRD PARTY TOOL (Software) which can be used for the better performance of the computer along with their uses.
• It contains the tips for maintaining the performance of the computer working under WINDOWS XP platform.
• In future it may also contain the tips for maintaining the computers working under WINDOWS VISTA and WINDOWS 7 platform.
• The questions asked by the readers regarding the computer hardware would be answered or links regarding those queries would be displayed within a short period of time.
• It may also contain a few basic NETWORKING concepts in future.
  

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