4TH QUARTER • MOLEX CONNECTOR: Connects
IDE hard drives and optical drives.
• BERG CONNECTOR: Connects
ICT REVIEWER: PC floppy disk drives.
POWER SUPPLY • SATA CONNECTOR: Connects
SATA drives.
The Power Supply
The power supply can be seen from the back
of the system unit. The mains cable is Power supplies are rated in watts. The vary
plugged into the power supply. A computer in size from 350 watts to 1000 watts. Using
power supply has a number of functions: too small a power supply of a low quality
one can lead to serious computer problems.
• It converts the power from Below is shown typical power usage for a
Alternating current (AC) as number of computer devices:
supplied by the electric supplier to
Direct current (DC) as required by
the computer system. • Motherboard: 60 watts
• It transforms the 240 Volts supplied • Processor: 90 watts
by the electric supplier into the
voltages required by the computer • Memory: 10 watts / 128MB
system. The main voltages are: • Processor fan: 5 watts
• 12 volts for the disk drives as • Graphics card: 40 watts
they have motors
• Hard disk: 25 watts
• 3.3 and 5 volts for the circuit
boards in the computer. • Optical drive: 30 watts
• It uses advances power
management (APM) to allow
As can be seen, a large power supply ( at
the computer go into a
least 400 Watts) is preferable and does not
standby mode.
use more energy as it only supplies power
Some have a switch to toggle between 240 on demand.
volt supplies and 110 volt supplies.
Ports
The power supply has a number of
Computer ports are interfaces between
connectors to connect to the motherboard,
peripheral devices and the computer system.
drives etc. The main connectors are:
They are hardware devices built into the
• MAIN CONNECTOR: Connects to motherboard or on expansion cards. They
the motherboard and supplies the 3.3 are often built into the front of the computer
and 5 volt supply for the board.
chassis for easy access but will be cabled PS/2 port
back to the motherboard.
PS/2 ports are used to connect keyboards
and mice to the computer. The keyboard port
is purple and the mouse port is green.
Serial port
Although more or less obsolete, they are still
included in new systems. The serial port is a USB port
9-pin port. Windows calls them Com ports -
The universal serial bus was intended to
Com1, Com2 etc. Mice and external
replace Serial, Parallel and PS/2 ports with a
modems were connected to these ports. They
single standard. 127 devices can be
are turquoise in colour.
connected to a single USB port and
computers are often supplied with six to ten
ports. USB is hot swappable which means
Parallel port
that devices can be connected and
This 25-pin port is used to connect printers, disconnected without turning off the
scanners, external hard disks, zip drives etc. computer system, something that should
to the computer. It is burgundy in colour never be attempted with parallel or serial
and windows refers to them as LPT ports - devices.
LPT1, LPT2 etc. The original port only
supported single direction communication
but the modern parallel ports can support bi- DIFFERENT USB STANDARDS IN
directional communications. This is essential USE:
for reporting ink levels etc. in printers.
• USB 1: This is the original standard
Video port and can transfer data at 1.5MBps.
This is too slow for external hard
Used to connect a monitor to the computer
disks with capacities of 500GB or
system. There are two types:
more.
• USB 2: This is forty times faster
than USB1 and has a data transfer
• VGA port: This is a 15-pin port and
rate of 60MBps. This is the current
is blue in colour. It is an analogue
standard.
port and is being replaced by the
• USB 3: This is ten times faster than
DVI port.
USB2 and 400 times faster than the
• DVI port: This is white in colour original USB1. it has a data transfer
and is a digital port. This means that rate of 600MBps and will be
no conversion is necessary between common on new computer systems
the computer and the monitor and in 2009.
that means that images can be
produced more quickly on the
monitor.
Firewire port
FireWire (IEEE 1394) is a technology
introduced to the computer world by Apple.
There are two versions available and a third
is planned:
• FW 400: This can transfer data at
400Mbps which is 50MBps. This
makes it similar in speed to USB2.
• FW 800: This can transfer data at
800Mbps which is 100MBps making
it considerably faster than USB2.
• FW S3200: This will transfer data at
3200Mbps which is 400MBps. It is
intended to compete with USB3.
Ethernet port
This port is used to connect to a network.
Technically known as RJ45, it is physically
bigger than the modem port. They can either
be part of the motherboard or on an
expansion card.
Audio ports
These ports are used to input and output
audio from the computer system. The
standard is three mini jack ports but there
may be more. The three ports are:
• LIGHT BLUE: Line in - this is used
for connecting stereo systems, tape
cassette players, record players,
radios etc. You can record what is
being played on the connected
device.
• LIME: Connect the speakers to this
port.
• PINK: Connect a microphone to this
port.
