Motherboards

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  Components Of A Motherboard

1 - PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) slot
You will find that you will get a number of PCI slots from 1 up to about 6. The PCI bus runs at 33Mhz and normally 32bits. The PCI bus was the first one to fully support plug and play. The PCI bus supports a wide range of peripherals from sound cards to DVD decoders and graphics accelerators. PCI is now the standard for internal peripherals except for graphics cards which have now moved over to the faster AGP port.

2 - AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port)Slots
The AGP was designed specifically for video cards. AGP was really forced in to the computer world as graphics cards required more and more bandwidth. AGP provided not only a faster bus speed  but allowed fast access to the main memory allowing for greater storage space in the memory for textures etc. AGP still uses 32bits but is based on the PCI 2.1 standard which allowed 66Mhz transfer rate instead of 33Mhz.

3 - Chipset - North Bridge
The Motherboards chipset can be described as what sets it apart from other boards in its category. Different chipsets contain different features and components. A chipset is a number of integrated circuits built onto the board to provide specific functions. Other parts may be used to control the CPU functions. Most chipsets are designed to work with only one "class" of CPU.

4 - CPU (Central Processing Unit) socket
All the CPU "sockets look very similar, however they are different in the way they have different amount of pins and in different layouts. Because of this getting the right one is essential.

5 - DIMM (Double Inline Memory Module) slots
These are by far the most common memory slots at the moment; the others are SIMMs (Single Inline Memory Module) and RIMM's (Rambus Inline Memory Module)

6 - Motherboard Battery
The battery gives the board a small amount of power in order to store some vital data on your machine when the power is off. Data stored is that like the time and date so you don't have to reset them every time you boot the machine up. Motherboard batteries are usually long lasting Lithium batteries.

7 - ATX Power connector
The standard ATX power connector, the cable for this will be coming from the PSU, a clip is normally provided to make sure you get them in the correct order.

8 - IDE connector
The connectors to which you will insert an IDE cable (supplied with motherboard) IDE cables connect devices such as hard disks, CD Drives and DVD Drives.

The Blue connector should be connected to the system board

The Black connector should be connected to the master device

The Grey Connector should be connected to the slave device   

9- Serial ATA Connector
Serial ATA or more commonly seen as S-ATA is a new way of connecting your Hard Drives to your PC. S-ATA drives have the capability of being faster than the IDE counterparts and also have smaller thinner cables which help with the airflow of the system. S-ATA hard disks are fast becoming the norm for hard drive technology

10 - Chipset - South Bridge
The South Bridge does an important job as well. It handles things like the PCI bus, onboard Network and sound chips as well as the IDE and S-ATA buses.

11 - USB 2.0 header
As well as having USB ports on the rear of the motherboard, motherboard manufacturers often add a couple of USB headers so you can connect optional cables for extra USB ports. These cables are often supplied and you only need to add them on if you need the extra connectivity.

12 - Firewire header
It is basically a high performance serial bus for digital and audio equipment to exchange data. The technology preceded USB but yet is faster than any current USB port. Often used for transferring digital video to the PC straight from a digital camera.