The Motherboard

A+ Hardware Lecture 1

Motherboards
Connects all PC components 3 types of motherboard Form factor, chipset, expansion slots, components XT (Extended Technology) AT (Advanced Technology) ATX (Advanced Technology Extended) Intel vs. AMD ZIF vs SEC

XT Motherboard
1981 IBM PC 1 Mb RAM 8 bit bus Configured using jumpers Designed aroung 8088 processor

RAM SIMM sockets P8 and P9 Keyboard FDD COM 1+2

AT Motherboard
IDE

Printer PCI slots CPU ZIF socket

ISA slots

AT Motherboard
Configured using CMOS Multiple clock speeds 16 bit bus First used by 80286 (1982) Single keyboard DIN connector Used P8 and P9 connectors to power the motherboard Used SIMM RAM Uses AT case and AT power supply Lack of external ports

Inserting P8 and P9 connectors

NB: Black wire to black wire

Banking Memory - 80286

286 CPU
16 bit data bus 16 bit address bus

Memory Controller
8 bit Memory bus
Simm 1 (30 pin) 8 bits wide Simm 2 (30 pin) 8 bits wide

Two 8-bit SIMMs are banked together to fit the 16 bit data bus 8 bit memory bus means that each SIMM can send or receive 8 bits of data at a time

Memory 80386/80486
386/486

CPU
32 bit data bus 32 bit address bus

Memory Controller
32 bit memory bus
386 and 486 processors had a 32 bit memory bus. This meant that you could install a single SIMM

Simm 1 (72 pin) 32 bits wide

ATX Motherboard
Need for a new form factor 2 IDE sockets Supports 184-pin DDR RAM Older ATX boards support 168-pin DIMM RAM Pentium 4 ATX boards use RIMM RAM

ATX Motherboard
AGP Slot USB, Serial, Parallel, Keyboard, mouse Ports P1 or ATX power connector

PCI Slots

Northbridge

Processor zif socket

CMOS battery

RAM DIMM sockets Floppy Disk Drive Controller

IDE 1 and IDE 2

ATX Motherboard
Introduced in 1995 All I/O ports on the board Single 20-pin P1 connector Later ATX boards also use ATX 12v connector 3.3V/2.8V direct from PSU Uses mini-din (PS/2) for keyboard/mouse Soft power MicroATX, FlexATX

Motherboard Chipsets
Chipset = a group of microchips that together control a major function of the motherboard Northbridge show pic main pathway between CPU, RAM and AGP Southbridge show pic manages basic input/output such as serial, USB, IDE and PCI Super I/O chip

Memory Pentium
Pentium

CPU
64 bit data bus The data bus and the address bus are collectively know as the frontside bus 32 bit address bus

frontside bus

North Bridge
(Memory Controller)

64 bit memory bus

The Northbridge chip connects all intelligent peripherals e.g. CPU, RAM, graphics

Dimm 1 (168 pin) 64 bits wide

How it all connects together

backside bus L2 Cache
(in the CPU housing on die)

Pentium CPU
L1 cache

frontside bus

64 bit data bus

32 bit address bus

RAM
memory bus HDD

North Bridge
(Memory Controller)

AGP AGP bus scanner

EIDE
CD/DVD keyboard mouse

South Bridge
PCI bus ISA bus

PCI

modem sound

FDD ISA BIOS

Buying a motherboard
Intel or AMD processor Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, Tyan, Shuttle ATX case and ATX power supply Clock speed

Troubleshooting Motherboards
Burn-in failure PC wont boot Incorrectly seated RAM Incorrectly seated Graphics Card Power surges ESD Intermittant faults