How to become a MoboMoFo... :D
Sep 20 '01 (Updated Sep 24 '01)
The Bottom Line Read this and you'll know more or less than I do!
Possibly one of the most complex component of one's computer- the motherboard! Now, this may get scary for some people, but rest assured, you'll get through this in one piece. Furthermore, you will be much more knowledgeable of not only your motherboard, but your system as a whole as well. I'm only going to cover the typical motherboard, so for those of you scoping this out who might have a greater knowledge than someone who would normally be referancing this, you won't find any terms like SCSI or RAID mentioned here.
...But, oh, where to begin? Where to begin..? Hmmm...
MOTHER- what?
Well, the motherboard is kinda like a tree trunk- everything branches from it: mouse, keyboard, CD-ROM, hard drive, power supply, processor, etc. All operation is dependant on it as it is the central communication unit. If anything disrupts this communication, your system will not work- this can be as simple as a bad keyboard or even a poorly set memory module.
People who like to handle hardware refer to motherboards as mobos (MO ther BO ard)
TYPES OF MOBOS
2 form factors: AT and ATX. AT is almost 10 years dead, so we'll skip that. The ATX form factor is a little bigger than a legal sheet of paper, but also a little prettier ;)
STICKIN' IT TO THE MOBO
There are essentially five types of things that connect to the motherboard: processor, memory slots, expansion slots, IDE ports, and main power port.
MAIN POWER PORT- first and formost, the most important part of the motherboard. It's kinda hard to power up your machine without power. It's usually found along near the top and somewhere near the processor. It's the the only clear extruded plastic piece to the whole motherboard so it shouldn't be all too hard to find. This is where the largest rectangular plug inserts into from your power supply. Take care to unplug from here anytime you want to explore your case, otherwise you run the risk of damaging essentially anything including the motherboard and you.
PROCESSOR- fits in either what are refered to as a socket or a slot somewhere near the top of the board. Your motherboard will have one or the other. The socket is relatively flat with a few hundred holes in it to fit the pins of a socket processor and a lever off to the side of it. The slot resembles the 5 or more of a similar style lined up parallel to each other below this one. The processor is often refered to as the CPU or, to some, as the proc.
MEMORY SLOTS- Memory or RAM (random access memory) is inserted into the thinnest slots on the motherboard- these are found beside where the processor fits it. They will have retention clips at either end for each slot- these are typically white in color. If you take a close look, the slots, as all slots are on the motherboard, are sectional. This not only tells you how to fit the memory in, but also what type of memory fits in there. Three sections indicates SDR RAM (single data rate) while two sections indicates DDR RAM (double data rate). Seperate pieces of memory are refered to as "sticks," DIMMs, or modules.
EXPANSION SLOTS- Really, there are only 3 type of expansion slots that you'll see on most motherboards... maybe only 2. The smallest is AGP, the next larger is PCI, and the largest is ISA. Most modern motherboards only have 3 to 6 PCI slots and 1 AGP. ISA is an old and outdated standard, so you may never see this type again. There are a few more types on some motherboards. No more than half the length of the AGP slot, are the AMR or CNR slots. These are used by retail packaged computer manufacturers for combo devices like audio/modem cards.
IDE PORTS- These can found parallel of each other on the right side of the board. These are where your hard drive(s) and cd-rom/dvd-rom/cd-rw devices plug in for data transferance. The fastest bus (the data transferance speed of anything, not nessesarily the IDE ports) through these ports is currently 100MB per second- also refered to as ATA100. There are hard drives rated at ATA133, but you'll be hard pressed to find a motherboard with an IDE bus rated at ATA133. The older motherboards have IDE bus speeds as slow as 33MB per second (ATA33). If you decide to add a drive, the bus speed has little to do with compatibility, though it is nice to have the drive match the bus speed. Non-hard drive devices are almost always ATA33, so this can't be helped. If you want data transferance faster than ATA33, though, you'll need the bus, drive, and, IDE cable rated at that speed. Fortunately, there are only two speeds of cable- 40wire ATA33 and 80wire ATA66/100.
Seperate from the IDE ports but located in parallel with the them is the floppy drive port. I'm not sure if this is technically IDE because it does not have the same pin count. I've never heard it refered to as being IDE nor am I going to be the first. It does look similar, so don't confuse the too types of ports in this area of the board. Fortunately, the pin count is different, so you couldn't make the mistake of inserting a device into the wrong port.
I/O
If you were to rotate it upright, along the left side would be your Input/Output (I/O) ports. These include from top to bottom: two PS/2 ports- one for your mouse, and one for your keyboard; 2 slender USB ports; and 2 serial and one parallel(about double the length of serial, this may be where your printer is connected, but not nessessarily). Depending on your motherboard, there may be a few more ports including VGA-out (where your monitor plugs in with onboard video) and/or 1/8" audio jacks (onboard sound).
ONBOARD vs OFFBOARD
While I'm mentioning it, why don't I explain this? "OnBoard" is characterized by any component that is directly connected to the motherboard- you can't disconnect this(video, audio). "OffBoard" is characterized by any component you have to install seperately from the motherboard- typically a card of some sort(video card, sound card). Generally speaking, OffBoard is better than OnBoard. OffBoard offers easier managability and much better performance. OnBoard's advantages are mostly cost- onboard audio and video is cheap. This is why you will often find this on "value" PCs or retail packaged PCs.
However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. OnBoard I/O is much better than OffBoard- it also tends to be more expensive. I/O requires a lot of bandwidth and was originally designed to make use of it OnBoard. If you were to connect a Ultra160 SCSI card (160MB per sec) to a PCI slot (33MB per sec), your performance would be highly limited. The entire PCI bus's total bandwidth is no more than 133MB per sec.
FINAL REMARKS
Well, that's essentially it. You could write a book on this sort of thing. It's hard to only keep the basics and not get into heavy details. Like I said in the beginning, this review covered the basic motherboard componants. I am not going to get into the specifics- that'd take weeks :P
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mobomofo
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Mobomofo has a great knowledge of electronic components. So great, he thought to share it!
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