Expansion
Slots
ISA
slots. These
were the oldest expansion slots in the history of motherboards. They were found
in AT boards and are identified by black color. Conventional display
cards or sound cards were installed in these slots. The full form of ISA
is Industry Standard Architecture and is a 16- bit bus.
PCI
Slots. The full
form of PCI is Peripheral Component Interconnect. The PCI slot is one of the
important motherboard components today and is vastly used to
install add-on cards on the motherboard. The PCI supports
64-bit high-speed bus.
PCI
express. Also known
as PCIe, these are the latest and the fastest component of the motherboard to
support add-on cards. It supports full duplex serial bus.
AGP slot. Accelerated graphics port(AGP)
is specifically used to install a latest graphics card. AGP runs on a 32-bit
bus and both PCIe and AGP can be used to install high-end gaming display cards.
RAM(memory)
slots
SIMM
slots. The full form
is a single in-line memory module. These slots were found in older
motherboards, up to 486-boards. The SIMM supports 32-bit bus.
DIMM
slots. The full form
of DIMM is a Double inline memory module. These are the latest RAM slots
which run on a faster 64-bit bus. The DIMM used on Laptop boards are called
SO-DIMM.
CPU
Socket
Another
vital motherboard component is the CPU socket which is used to
install the processor on the motherboard. Some important sockets are explained
below.
Socket7. It is a 321 pin socket that
supported older processors like Intel Pentium 1/2/MMX, AMD k5/K6, and Cyrix M2.
Socket370. It is a 370 pin socket that
supports Celeron processors and Pentium-3 processors.
Socket
775. It is a
775-pin socket that supports Inter dual core, C2D, P-4 and Xeon processors.
Socket
1156. Found on
latest types of motherboards, it is an 1156-pin socket that supports latest
Intel i-3, i-5 and i-7 processors.
Socket
1366. The
socket is of 1366 pins and supports latest i-7 900 processors.
BIOS
The full
form of BIOS is Basic Input Output System. It is a motherboard component in the
form of a Integrated chip. This chip contains all the information and settings
of the motherboard which you can modify by entering the BIOS mode from your
computer.
CMOS
Battery
The battery
or a cell is a 3.0 Volts lithium type cell. The cell is responsible for storing
the information in BIOS and the full form is Complementary Metal Oxide
Semi-Conductor.
Power
Connectors
In order
to receive power from SMPS, there are connectors mounted on
the motherboards.
AT
connector. It consists of 2 number of 6
pin male connectors and is found on old types of motherboards.
ATX
connector. The
latest in the series of power connectors, they are either 20 or 24 pin female
connectors. Found in all the latest types of motherboards.
IDE
connector
The
Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) connectors are used to interface disk
drives. The 40-pin male connector is used to connect IDE hard disk
drives and the 34-pin male connector connects to Floppy Disk Drive.
SATA
connector
Latest in
the series, the connectors, Serial Advance Technology Attachment(SATA) are
7-pin connectors to interface latest SATA hard disks or optical drives.
They are much faster than IDE interface.
Co-Processor
The
co-processor is one of the important motherboard components and helps the main
processor in mathematical calculations and computer graphics.
Cabinet
connections
The cabinet
in which the motherboard is installed has many buttons that connect to the motherboard.
Some of the common connectors are Power Switch, Reset Switch, Front USB,
Front Audio, Power indicator(LED) and HDD LED.
I/O
interface connectors
Choosing a
right type of motherboard that is compatible with other parts of computer is
vital step in determining the overall speed of your PC. Once you learn about
various motherboard components, you can easily assemble your own
PC or solve the basic hardware issues in motherboard
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