1. Motherboard and Bios

3. Generic Modern Motherboard

5. CPU Socket Chipset PCI-X Courtesy of ASUS USA SATA RAM Power Battery

6. Things to know about the slots PCI-X and AGP – (Advanced Graphics Port) - Special slots for graphics cards PCI – (Peripheral Component Interconnect) – Most common on newer PCs. Used for Graphics, Network, Firewire, and any other add-on card for a newer PC. Roughly 10 times faster than ISA ISA – (Industry Standard Architecture ) – Common on older PCs (Over 8 yrs old) – Slower Bus speed than PCI

7. Riding the Bus Lines of communication within the PC Capability measured in speed and width Modern PCs usually have a bus speed of 133- 533 MHz – Older PCs have 66 or 133 MHz – Important when buying additional RAM, RAM must run at the same speed as the Motherboard – Main Bus vs. Front side Bus Bus width – amount of data that can be sent over the same wire at the same time – Modern PCs – Maximum 64 Bits Bus Width

8. Internal and External Bus Internal Bus – On the board itself (Processor, RAM) External Bus – leads outside of the box (USB, Keyboard connections, PCI etc) Can have different speeds

9. PC Card Speeds AGP – usually 32 Bits PCI – 32 or 64 Bits ISA – 8 or 16 Bits

10. CMOS Battery Lithium Battery that backs up the System BIOS Needs replacing every so often Signs it needs to be replaced – Clock does not keep time between reboots – Computer “loses” hard drives, floppies, and other devices that are installed on the computer – Other assorted weirdness

11. BIOS (Basic Input Output System) A power-on self-test (POST) for all of the different hardware components in the system to make sure everything is working properly Activating other BIOS chips on different cards installed in the computer - For example, SCSI and graphics cards often have their own BIOS chips. Providing a set of low-level routines that the operating system uses to interface to different hardware devices - It is these routines that give the BIOS its name. They manage things like the keyboard, the screen, and the serial and parallel ports, especially when the computer is booting. Managing a collection of settings for the hard disks, clock, etc. – Thanks Howstuffworks.com

12. BIOS Updates Newer mobo's often have updates Adds functionality, fixes bugs, speeds things up Methods: – Making a boot floppy – Boot CD-ROM – Program that re-boots and updates

13. Cooling Enemy #1: Heat Active cooling Passive cooling Moving parts wear out

14. Active Cooling Fans Heat Exchanger Liquid

15. Passive Cooling Heat Sinks Heat Exchanger