The Motherboard
September 18 (Day); September 12 (Night)
What is a Motherboard?:
oA motherboard’s primary purpose is to house the processor and allow all devices to
communicate with it and with one another.
What is on a Motherboard?:
oCPU Socket / Slot (discussed in a previous lecture) (p. 86)
oCPU Fan Power Connector (p. 86)
oMemory Slots (p. 87) :
2-4 slots very near the motherboard for installing RAM
oPower Connector (p. 87):
Used to power objects on the motherboard such as the processor and the
memory.
oChip Set (the Northbridge and Southbridge discussed in an earlier lecture) (p. 88)
oEIDE and FDD Ports (p. 88):
Used to allow floppy drives, hard drives, CD-ROM drives, and DVD
drives a connection to the motherboard.
oExpansion Slots (p. 89):
Expansion slots allow you to customize your computer by plugging
components into the expansion slots.
Expansion slots allow the user to increase the capabilities of a computer
without having to buy an entirely new system every time an innovation
appears.
oFlash ROM (p. 89) :
Flash ROM is the read only memory that stores the motherboard BIOS
(a.k.a. system BIOS).
