EL – 113 Introduction to Computing

Experiment # 1

Hardware Demonstration

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Copyright © Department of Electrical Engineering – Usman Institute of Technology

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Theory

The motherboard is a printed circuit board that is the foundation of a computer and allows
the CPU, RAM, and all other computer hardware components to function and communicate with
each other.
Below is a graphic illustration of the 5-E motherboard and some basic explanations of each of the
major portions of the motherboard.

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1. Back Panel Connectors & Ports

Connectors and ports for connecting the computer to external devices such as display ports,
audio ports, USB ports, Ethernet ports, PS/2 ports etc. See image below for a close-up view.

2. PCI Slots

PCI stand for Peripheral Component Interconnect Slot for older expansion cards such as
sound cards, network cards, connector cards. See image below for a close-up view.

3. PCI Express x1 Slots

Slot for modern expansion cards such as sound cards, network cards (Wi-Fi, Ethernet,
Bluetooth), connector cards (USB, FireWire, eSATA) and certain low-end graphics cards.

4. PCI Express x16 Slot

Slot for discrete graphic cards and high bandwidth devices such as top-end solid state drives.

5. Northbridge

Also known as Memory Controller Hub (MCH).Chipset that allows the CPU to communicate
with the RAM and graphics cards like AGP etc.

6. CPU Socket

When referring to a processor, a CPU socket or processor socket is a connection that allows
computer processors to be connected to a motherboard. For example, the Socket 370 is an
example of such a socket. In the picture above, is an example of what a socket may look like
on a motherboard. Although there have been computers that used the slot processor, most
computers today and in the past have used socket processors.ATX 12V Power Connector

7. Front Panel USB 2.0 Connectors

Connects to USB 2.0 ports at the front or top of a computer case.

8. Front Panel Connectors

Connects to the power switch, reset switch, power LED, hard drive LED and front audio ports
of a computer case.

9. IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) Connector

Connects to older hard drive disks and optical drives for data transfer.

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10. CMOS Battery

Supplies power to store BIOS settings and keep the real-time clock.

11. Southbridge

Also known as the Input/Output Controller Hub (ICH)

12. SATA Connectors

Connects to modern hard disk drives, solid state drives and optical drives for data transfer.

13. Fan Headers

Supplies power to the CPU heat sink fan and computer case fans

14. RAM Slots

Insert RAM here.

15. ATX Power Connector

Connects to the 24-pin ATX power cable of a power supply unit which supplies power to the
motherboard.

16. mSATA Connector

Connects to mSATA solid state drive. In most cases, this SSD is used as cache to speed up
hard disk drives, but it's possible to re-purpose it as a regular hard drive.

17. Front Panel USB 3.0 Connector

Connects to USB 3.0 ports at the front or top of the computer case.

18. Power & Reset Button

Onboard button to turn on, turn off and reboot the computer.

19. System Panel Connector

Alternatively referred to as the fpanel or front panel connector, the system panel
connector is what controls the computer's power button, reset button, and LED's found on the
front bezel of a computer using the system panel cables. The System panel cables, are two
wire cables that are color coded to help identify where they connect to the motherboard
system panel connector. The black or white wire is the ground (GND) wire and the colored

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wire is the powered wire. The cables, colors, and connections vary depending on the
computer case and motherboard you have.

20. Coil or Inductor

Short for electromagnetic coil, a coil is conductor wire such as copper in a cylindrical form
around an iron core that creates an inductor or electromagnet to store magnetic energy. Coils
are often used to remove power spikes and dips from power. In the picture below, is an
example of an inductor on a computer motherboard.

21. USB Header

The USB header is a pin connection found on a computer motherboard that allow
additional USB connections to be added to the computer. For example, if you wanted to
add additional USB connections to the front of your computer a USB add-on could be
added into one of the drive bays and connected to the USB header. In the picture below,
is an example of what the USB headers look like on a computer motherboard.

22. CMOS and BIOS Memory

The BIOS (Basic Input Output System) settings that you use to control how your PC
works must be saved in non-volatile memory so that they are preserved when he machine
is off. This is opposed to regular system memory, which is cleared each time you turn off
the PC. A special type of memory is used to store this information, called CMOS
(Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) memory, and a very small battery is
used to trickle a small charge to it to make sure that the data it holds is always preserved.
These memories are very small, typically 64 bytes, and the batteries that they use
typically last for years.

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23. Cache

Cache is a high-speed access area that can be either a reserved section of

main memory or a storage device. The two main cache types are memory cache and disk
cache. Memory cache is a portion on memory of high-speed static RAM (SRAM) and is
effective because most programs access the same data or instructions over-and-over. By
keeping as much of this information as possible in SRAM, the computer avoids accessing
the slower DRAM. Most computers today come with L3 cache or L2 cache, while older
computers included only L1 cache. Cache memory is located in two general locations
inside the processor (internal cache) and on the motherboard (external cache)

24. RAM

Alternatively referred to as main memory, primary memory, or system memory,

Random Access Memory (RAM) is a computer storage location that allows information
to be stored and accessed quickly from random locations within DRAM on a memory
module. Because information is accessed randomly instead of sequentially like
a CD or hard drive the computer is able to access the data much faster than it would if it
was only reading the hard drive. However, unlike ROM and the hard drive RAM is
a volatile memory and requires power in order to keep the data accessible, if power is lost
all data contained in memory lost.

Do It Yourself

 Define Internal Structure of Central Processing unit.

 Where cache is situated in mother board?

 What is the difference between Static Ram and Dynamic Ram?

 What is the functionality of BIOS?

 If CMOS battery is discharged .What effect will occur?

 What is the Difference between SATA and IDE Hard drives?

 Why Processor Need a Fan and Heat Sink?

 What is major difference Southbridge and North Bridge?

EL-113 Introduction to Computing