Computer configuration

1. COMPUTER CONFIGURATION
Motherboard: Provides substrates and electrical connections and synchronizes the
various operations between different components connected to it directly or indirectly.
Types of Motherboard
1 Baby AT Motherboard
Originally with IBM/XT motherboard
Available for use with both Pentium class and Pentium II/III/ Celeron processors
Lack of built in ports and cooling problems
Difficult to upgrade
2 LPX Motherboard
Used by low cost systems
Single slot for riser card
Expansion cards for Video, Audio etc. are connected to riser card and not to motherboard
3 ATX Motherboard
Built in ports
Much greater ease of upgrade and service
Uses a different advanced power supply system with power management features
Requires an ATX cabinet
4 NLX Motherboard
Replacement for old LPX low profile motherboards
Consists of built in ports and a riser card
It is easy to remove for service
CHIPSET:
Popular architecture used in construction of motherboard are North Bridge and South
Bridge architecture OR Chipsets.
In the older chipsets the same bandwidth was used by each and every device, which gave
rise to less speed. In newer chipsets like i810 and i820 chipsets, PCI bus is no longer
primary pathway but has been replaced by HUB and SPOKE architecture to control the
data flow between the core components of the system.
BIOS
The ROM BOIS chip on computer’s motherboard is designed to provide the essential
interfacing between hardware (Disk, clock, CPU, ports) and software (Operating System)
BIOS on add on cards help manage those devices better.
Initially it was read only memory. Later versions were reprogrammable. Now a days it is
Flash BOIS. All BIOS on Pentium class machines and beyond are flash upgradable.
Different BOIS available are:
Phoenix BOIS, Award BOIS, AMI BOIS, IBM BOIS, Compaq BOIS

2. PROCESSORs
• 32 Bit Processors
• 32 bit represents the width of registers within CPU
• A register id a holding area for data
• Intel Itanium series is 64 Bit
Bus
A set of lines to move information from one part of the computer to another.
A Bus is divided into three functional groups
• Data
• Address
• Control
Clock Cycle
The basic unit of processor activity that refers to the speed at which an integrated chip
processes data
Every thing needs to be sequenced in computers and the clock speed determines how fast
all of this will be done
Cache
• Cache is an intermediate OR buffer memory
• Used to store frequently used data
• Basically two types of cache, Level1 and Level2
• Cache varies from processor to processor
• On older motherboards cache was present in the form of components
• Boards built for PII and above and Celeron processors has level2 cache integrated
into processor
• Pentium onwards all the cache are read and write cache
Examples of Processors:
• Athlon
• Duron
• Pentium
• Celeron
PC Diagnostic Tools:
It helps to know the hardware attributes of a PC
It tests the PC components of PC and identify the components and functioning of
hardware and the various processes related to it.
Few diagnostic tools:
• Amidiag
• Norton Disk Doctor
• Hardinfo Pro. 2.0

3. RAM:
Random Access Memory is a part of your computer to temporary store information while
the computer is on. The programs are loaded into this area before the CPU processes the
information. The contents are lost once the computer is powered down.
In RAM the information in a cell is accessed by referring to Rows and Column.
RAM is composed of millions of tiny elements that have the capacity of storing a unit of
digital information called a bit.
Transistors and capacitors are two of the most popular electronic components that have
the capacity of storing the charge. Capacitors are the electronic components that are
constructed out of two conductors that are separated over a small space by a non-
conducting material. When an electric voltage difference is applied between the two
plates, a charge gets stored within this component. This charge remains on it, so long as
there is an electric potential applied between the plates. Otherwise it gets discharged over
a period of time. To counter this problem, the charge on the capacitors used in RAM is
constantly refreshed to as to keep the information within it. These capacitors are
extremely tiny and are fabricated on a chip of silicon that holds millions of them. They
are interconnected via very fine conducting paths that are also etched into the silicon and
individual elements are written to or read from these memory cells by applying the
correct signals to the corresponding lines.
Types of RAM:
SDRAM
RDRAM
DDR SDRAM
Is an improved version of standard SDRAM. In which data is transferred twice as fast.
Instead of doubling the actual clock rate, DDR memory achieves the doubling the
performance by transferring twice per transfer cycle once at the leading and once at the
trailing edge of the cycle.
PORTS:
Serial Port:
Serial refers to data that is sent over a single wire
The other wires in the serial ports are used to control the flow of data to or from the port
Compared to Parallel Ports, serial ports are very slow but their signals can be transmitted
a greater distance
Serial ports use 9 pin or 25 pin male connectors
Parallel Port:
Parallel ports are used for faster transmition of data but for smaller distance
It comes in three different types
DB25F, a 25 pin port
Centronics a 36 Pin port
High Density 36 Pin port

4. USB Port:
A Universal serial bus is high speed serial connection that enables upto 127 hot
swappable devices of different types to be connected to a single port.