What is a Motherboard and what are its parts?

1. Motherboard
By
Leslie F.

2. What is a Motherboard?
 A motherboard is the main printed circuit board (PCB) found in general
purpose microcomputers and other expandable systems. It holds and
allows communication between many of the crucial electronic
components of a system, such as the central processing unit (CPU)
and memory, and provides connectors for other peripherals. Unlike
a backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems
such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory
controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for
general purpose use.

3. Parts of the Motherboard

4. What is the Chipset?
 A chipset is a group of microchips that are designed to work with one or
more related functions that were first introduced in 1986 when Chips and
Technologies introduced the 82C206. The original 82C206 chipset
included the 82284 Clock Generator functions, 82288 Bus Controller,
8254 System Timer, dual 8259 Interrupt Controllers, dual 8237 DMA
controllers, and the MC146818 Clock. Four of the 82C206 chips were
later replaced by CS8221 or NEAT (New Enhanced AT) chipset that
contained only three chips. This was then replaced by the
82C836 SCAT (Single Chip AT) chipset that combined all the chips in the
set into a single chip.

5. CHIPSET

6. Northbridge
 Northbridge is an Intel chipset that communicates with the
computer processor and controls interaction with memory, the
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, Level 2 cache, and all
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) activities. Northbridge communicates
with the processor using the front side bus (FSB). Northbridge is one
part of a two-part chipset called Northbridge/Southbridge. Southbridge
handles the input/output (I/O) functions of the chipset.

7. Northbridge

8. Southbridge
 Southbridge is an Intel chipset that manages the basic forms of
input/output ( I/O ) such as Universal Serial Bus ( USB ), serial , audio,
Integrated Drive Electronics ( IDE ), and Industry Standard Architecture
( ISA ) I/O in a computer. Southbridge is one of two chipsets that are
collectively called Northbridge /Southbridge. Northbridge controls
the processor , memory , Peripheral Component Interconnect
( PCI ) bus , Level 2 cache , and all Accelerated Graphics Port ( AGP )
activities. Unlike Northbridge, Southbridge consists of one chip, which
sits on Northbridge's PCI bus.

9. Southbridge

10. Southbridge vs Northbridge
 North and south bridge refer to the data channels to the CPU, memory
and Hard disk data goes to CPU using the Northbridge. And the mouse,
keyboard, CD ROM external data flows to the CPU using
the Southbridge.
 The Northbridge is the portion of the chipset HUB that connects faster
I/O buses (for example, an AGP bus) to the system bus. Northbridge SI
also bigger looking then the Southbridge chip. The Southbridge is the
HUB that connects to slower I/O buses (for example, An ISA bus) to the
system bus.

11. Data Bus
 A data bus is a system within a computer or device, consisting of a
connector or set of wires, that provides transportation for data. Different
kinds of data buses have evolved along with personal computers and
other pieces of hardware. A data bus can transfer data to and from the
memory of a computer, or into or out of the central processing unit
(CPU) that acts as the device's "engine." A data bus can also transfer
information between two computers.

12. Data Bus