Motherboard

Concept Notes

The motherboard is a printed circuit board that is the foundation of a computer, located on the back
side or at the bottom of the computer case. It allocates power to the CPU, RAM, and all other computer
hardware components. Most importantly, the motherboard allows hardware components to communicate
with one another. Alternatively referred to as the mb, mainboard, mobo, mobd, backplane board, base board,
main circuit board, planar board, system board, or a logic board on Apple computers. Brief History of the

Motherboard
Prior to the creation of microprocessors, computer systems were assembled in mainframes, with gears which
were linked by a backplane that had numerous slits for linking wires. In previous plans, wires were required to
bond card connector pins however, quickly they became an object of past with the discovery of printed circuit
boards. The memory, CPU and additional peripherals were all created on this PCB.

At some stage in the 1990s, it was discovered that escalating the quantity of peripheral supports on the printed
circuit board was very cost-effective. Therefore, ICs (single Integrated Circuits), proficient of sustaining
lowspeed peripherals such as mouse, keyboards, serial ports, etc., were integrated on the motherboards. During
the late 1990s, they started to include full series of audio, video, networking as well as storage functions on
them.
Advanced end functions for graphic cards and 3D gaming were in addition incorporated later.
Micronics, AMI, Mylex, Orchid Technology, DTK, Elitegroup, etc. were a small number of corporations that
were early leaders in the development of motherboard but, groups such as IBM and Apple soon took over.
They provided high-end, complicated motherboards that integrated better attributes and greater functioning
over existing motherboards.

Types of Motherboard

a. Integrated Motherboards
Integrated motherboards have all the peripheral device slots, input output ports, serial and parallel ports are
mounted on the board. The connectors for the various devices such as the hard drive connector and floppy
disk drive connector are installed directly on to the motherboard. The major disadvantage of these types of
motherboards are that if an individual component of the motherboard fails, the whole board may need to be
replaced and that can be a costly affair at times.
b. Non-integrated Motherboards
• Non-Integrated motherboards have RAM slots integrated on the board. All the input-output ports for devices
such as the serial and parallel port connectors, other controllers such as connectors for hard drive and floppy
disk drives are attached to the system using expansion boards.

Types of Non-Integrated Motherboards

a. Whole board is costlier as compared to integrated board as all the devices and ports, and other connectors
for the devices need to be installed individually.
b.The Non-integrated Motherboards are almost extinct because these types of motherboards are Costly and
not very space efficient.
c. Desktop Motherboards is used in personal computers and desktops. As it is used for applications at home
and in office, this type of motherboard is the most basic type.
 Parts of The Motherboard
Concept Notes

Expansion Slots - Alternatively referred to as a bus slot or expansion port, an expansion slot is connection or
port located inside a computer on the motherboard or riser board that allows a computer hardware expansion
card to be connected.
Accelerated Graphic Port (AGP) - The AGP channel is 32-bits wide and runs at 66 MHz, which is a total
bandwidth of 266 MBps and much greater than the PCI bandwidth of up to 1.07 GBps.
Peripheral Component Interconnect ( PCI) - Used to describe a common connection interface for
attaching computer peripherals to a PC's motherboard, or main circuit board. It is also called a PCI bus. A bus
is a term for a path between the components of a computer.
Case Fan - Referred to as a system fan, Case Fans help bring cool air into and blow hot air out of the case.
Back Pane Connector (Connection) - A connection is a term that describes the link between a plug or
connector into a port or jack.
Heat Sink - A heat sink is an electronic device that incorporates either a fan or a peltier device to keep a hot
component such as a processor cool.
Types of Heat sink:
1. Active
2. Passive
4- Pin (P4) Power Connection - The P4 cable is a 12V power supply cable has two black wires that serve as a
ground and two yellow wires that are +12VDC and is connected to a four-pin connection on the motherboard.
Inductor (Coil) 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. A coil can also refer to a spring.
Capacitor A capacitor is a component made of two or sets of two conductive plates with a thin insulator
between them and wrapped in a ceramic and plastic container. When the capacitor receives a direct current
(DC), a positive charge builds up on one of the plates (or set of plates) while a negative charge builds up on
the other.
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.
Northbridge - Alternatively referred to as the PAC (PCI/AGP Controller) and NB, the Northbridge is an
integrated circuit responsible for communications between the CPU interface, AGP, and the memory.
Southbridge- is an IC on the motherboard responsible for the hard drive controller, I/O controller and
integrated hardware. Integrated hardware can include the sound card and video card if on the motherboard,
USB, PCI, ISA, IDE, BIOS, and Ethernet.
Screw Holes and Standouts screw holes can be easily identified because they'll have metal surrounding each
hole. Some earlier motherboards may also have holes without metal surrounding the hole.
Memory Slots - A memory slot, memory socket, or RAM slot is what allows computer memory (RAM) to be
inserted into the computer.

Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) - Integrated Drive Electronics or IBM Disc Electronics, IDE is more
commonly known as ATA or Parallel ATA (PATA). It is a standard interface for IBM compatible hard drives
and CD or DVD drives. IDE is different than SCSI and Enhanced Small Device Interface (ESDI) because its
controllers are on each drive, meaning the drive can connect directly to the motherboard or controller.
ATX Style Connector - An ATX style connector A power supply with a 24-pin connector can be used on a
motherboard with a 20-pin connector by leaving the four additional pins disconnected.
SATA - Short for Serial ATA, SATA 1.0 was first released in August 2001 and is a replacement for the
Parallel ATA interface used in IBM compatible computers. Serial ATA can deliver 1.5 Gbps (1500 MBps) of
performance to each drive within a disk array. This cable helps make a much easier cable routing and offers
better airflow in the computer when compared to the earlier ribbon cables used with ATA drives.
CMOS - is short for Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor. CMOS is an on-board, battery powered
semiconductor chip inside computers that stores information. This information ranges from the system time
and date to system hardware settings for your computer. Alternatively referred to as a Real-Time Clock
(RTC), Non-Volatile RAM (NVRAM) or CMOS RAM,
 RAID - Short for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, RAID is an assortment of hard drives connected
and setup in ways to help protect or speed up the performance of a computer's disk storage. RAID is
commonly used on servers and high-performance computers.
 System Panel Connectors
Concept Notes

System Panel Connector

Referred to as the fpanel or front panel connector, the system
panel connector or system panel header controls a computer power
button, reset button, and LED's.

The System panel cables, as shown in the picture 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 wire is the powered wire. The cables,
colors, and connections vary depending on the computer case and
motherboard you have, however, generally include the cables mentioned
below.

Types of System Panel Cables

 HDD LED (IDE LED) - The LED activity light for the hard
drive. This is the LED that flashes as information is being
written and read from the hard drive.

 Power LED (PLED) - The LED power light, which indicates

when the computer is on, off, or in Standby.

 Power SW (PWRSW) - Controls the power button that allows

you to turn on and off the computer.

 Reset SW - Handles the reset button to restart the computer.

 Speaker - The internal speaker used to sound the beep noises you hear from your
computer when it is booting.
 Other components of the Motherboard
Concept Notes

BIOS – Basic Input/output System is a ROM chip that allows

you to access and set up your computer system at the most basic level.
The BIOS includes instructions on how to load basic computer
hardware and includes a test referred to as a POST (Power On SelfTest)
that helps verify the computer meets requirements to boot up properly.

The four main functions of a PC BIOS

1. POST - Test the computer hardware and make sure no errors exist
before loading the operating system.
2. Bootstrap Loader - Locate the operating system. If a capable
operating system is located, the BIOS will pass control to it.
3. BIOS drivers - Low-level drivers that give the computer basic operational control over your computer's
hardware.
4. BIOS or CMOS Setup - Configuration program that allows you to configure hardware settings
including system settings such as computer passwords, time, and date.

Bus - also known as the address bus, data bus, or local bus is a data connection between
two or more devices connected to the computer.

Cache memory - Memory cache is a portion of the high-speed static RAM (SRAM) and is effective because
most programs access the same data or instructions repeatedly.

Chipset - a group of microchips that are designed to work with one or more related functions.

Diode - Short for Light-Emitting Diode, LED is a semiconductor that illuminates when an electrical charge
passes through it. LEDs are commonly green, amber or red; however, can be an assortment of other colors.

Dip switches - a set of small switches in a dual in-line package (DIP) that is used to change the operating
mode of a device. Dip switches are used to configure computer peripherals and often used as an alternative to
jumpers because they are easier to operate and less likely to get lost.

Electrolytic - an electrolytic capacitor, which is a higher capacitance capacitor in a smaller package. In the
bottom picture to the right, is a picture and an example of these types of capacitors.

Fuse - Acting as a mini circuit breaker, a fuse is a resistor with a low tolerance designed to fail if excessive
current flows through an electronic device.