Personal Computer

Hardware
Agatha Turyagyenda
Lecture Six
SYSTEM UNIT
• The main case of a computer or mobile device.

• Houses the processing hardware, storage devices, power supply, and

cooling fans, interfaces to connect to peripheral devices, buses
connecting other components
The Motherboard
A circuit board is a thin board containing computer chips and other electronic
components.

Computer chips are very small pieces of silicon or other semiconducting material that
contain integrated circuits (ICs), which are collections of electronic circuits containing
microscopic pathways along which electrical current can travel, and transistors, which
are switches controlling the flow of electrons along the pathways.

The main circuit board inside the system unit is called the motherboard.

Other boards on the motherboard are called child-boards.

EXP AN SIO N CAR D C PU PO W E R SU PPLY FA N HAR D DRIVE
C o nnects periph eral Perform s th e calcu latio ns C o nverts sta ndard Cools the CPU. Stores da ta an d program s;
devices or adds ne w an d do es th e co m parison s e le ctrica l po w e r into th e princip al storage device
ca p ab ilitie s to a ne eded for processing, as a form the co m pute r fo r m o st co m p u te rs.
c om p u te r. w e ll a s co ntro ls th e o th e r c an u se .
p a rts o f the co m p u te r DRIVE BA YS
s y s te m . H o ld sto ra ge
EXP AN SIO N SLO TS devices, su ch as
C o nnect expan sion th e D V D an d
card s to th e m o th e r- h a rd d rive s
b oa rd to a dd a dd i- sh o w n h e re .
tio n a l ca pa b ilitie s.

DVD D RIVE
Accesses data
stored on C D s
o r D VD s.

M O THERBOARD
C o n ne cts a ll co m p o -
n en ts o f th e co m p u te r FLASH M EM O R Y
syste m ; the co m pute r’s CAR D RE ADE R
m a in circu it b oa rd. Accesses data
M EM O R Y (R AM ) M O D U LE S stored on flash
Store da ta tem porarily w h ile m em ory card s.
yo u a re w o rkin g w ith it.
M EM O RY SLO TS USB PO RTS
C o nnect m em ory C o nnect U S B
m o d u le s to th e devices to the
m oth erb o a rd . c om p u te r.
The Power Supply and Un-interruptible Power Supply

• Power supply inside a desktop computer connects to the motherboard to deliver electricity.

• Portable computers contain a rechargeable battery pack

• External power supply adapter that connects the computer to a power outlet to recharge the
battery

• Built in batteries for mobile devices

• Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) - Device that allows a computer to keep running for at least
a short time when the primary power source is lost.

Protection against power surge

• Drive bays- (rectangular metal racks) into which storage devices (hard drive, DVD drive, etc) can
be inserted and secured.
 Processors
• Central processing unit (CPU) – majority of processing

• Designed for a specific type of computer, e.g desktop computers, servers, portable
computers, mobile devices

• Personal computers and servers - Intel or Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)

• Tablets and mobile phones – ARM/ARM based.

• Multi-core CPUs;- CPUs that contain the processing components or cores of

multiple independent processors.

• Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) - takes care of the processing needed to display
images, videos and animations.
 Cache Memory
• Very fast memory circuitry located on or close to the CPU.

• Speed up processing by storing the data and instructions

• Level 1 (L1) cache (which is the fastest type of cache but typically holds
less data than other levels of cache) is checked first, Level 2 (L2) cache,
followed by Level 3 (L3) cache if it exists

• Some of the less used data in cache is overwritten in the event that it gets
full.
 Bus Width, Bus Speed, and Bandwidth
• A bus is an electronic path over which data can travel.

• Each wire in the bus acts as a separate lane, transmitting one bit at a time

• Bus width—the number of wires in the bus over which data can travel.

• Bandwidth—that is, the amount of data that can be transferred via the
bus in a given time period;

• Throughput- the amount of data actually transferred under real-life

conditions
Buses
• An electronic path over which data travels

• Expansion buses - connect peripheral devices to the motherboard

• Memory Bus – CPU to RAM.

• Frontside Bus (FSB) - Connects the CPU to the chipset

• PCI and PCI Express (PCIe) Bus – common for peripherals e.g monitor

• Universal Serial Bus – connects peripherals

 Memory
• Chip-based storage

Random Access Memory (RAM)/main memory/system memory

• Is used to store the essential parts of the operating system, programs and
data that the computer is currently using.

• Smartphones and other mobile devices typically use embedded memory

chips.
• The memory chips for servers and personal computers are typically
arranged onto circuit boards called memory modules e.g dual in-line
memory modules or DIMMs
 Random Access Memory
• Use SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM). SDRAM is commonly available
in DDR (double-data rate), DDR2, and DDR3 versions.

• Measured in bytes (Typically 2-8 GB)

• Dual channel Memory architecture-two paths that go to and from

memory

• Each location in memory has an address to keep data

• Computer keeps a directory of where each piece of data is kept.

 Registers
• High-speed memory built into the CPU

• Store data and intermediary results temporarily during processing

• Fastest type of memory used by the CPU

Read-Only Memory (ROM)
• Nonvolatile chips that permanently store data or programs.

• Attached to the motherboard

• Neither write over the data or programs nor erase it on shut down.

• Traditionally for storing permanent instructions of computer(firmware)

• Now being replaced by flash memory

Flash Memory
• Nonvolatile memory chips that can be used for storage by the computer
or the user

• Replace ROM for storing system information, such as a computer’s BIOS

(basic input/output system) or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
(UEFI)- Sequence for booting process, POST.

• Allow updating of firmware.

Fans, Heat Sinks, and Other Cooling Components

• By-product of packing an increasing amount of technology into a smaller

system unit is heat

• Several fans in desktops – video graphics board, power supply, CPU

• Liquid cooling systems – servers,

• Immersion cooling – large data centers.

Expansion Slots, Expansion Cards, and Express
Card Modules
• Expansion slots are locations on the motherboard into which expansion
cards (interface cards) can be inserted to connect those cards to the
motherboard

• Expansion cards are used to give desktop computers additional

capabilities, e.g connect to a network, add a hard drive, connect a
monitor.

• PCI and PCIe

Ports and Connectors
• Ports are the connectors on the exterior to connect external devices

• Monitor ports are used to connect a monitor to a computer. Traditionally,

monitors connect via a VGA connector or Digital Video Interface (DVI)
connector.

• High definition monitors usually connect via an HDMI (High-Definition

Multimedia Interface)

• Mobile devices typically use a Mini-HDMI port or the even smaller or

Micro-HDMI port instead.
Ports and Connectors
• Network ports are used to connect a computer to a computer network

• USB ports are used to connect USB devices to a computer

• IrDA (Infrared Data Association) ports and Bluetooth ports - receive

wireless transmissions from devices

• Flash memory card slots are used to connect flash memory cards .

• Audio ports are used to connect speakers, headphones, or a microphone

• eSATA (external SATA) ports are used to connect external SATA devices