Chapter 1: Introduction to Personal Computer Hardware

ESD Characteristics

• Build up of electric charge on a surface

• Static Electricity

• Volts to damage a computer component

• 3000 Volts

• Volts for a person to feel ESD

• Antistatic Wrist Strap

• Attached to you while working with PCs

• 30 Volts

Most common power supply on the market today. Its includes a second motherboard connector to provide dedicated power to the CPU.

• AT

• EPS12V

• ATX12V

This was originally designed for network servers but is now commonly used in high-end desktop models.

• AT

• EPS12V

• ATX12V

This connects hard drives, optical drives, or other devices.

• Molex

• Berg keyed connector

• 4-pin to 8-pin auxiliary power connector

This connector has 2 rows of three to four pins and supplies power to internal components.

• Berg keyed connector

• 6/8-pin PCIe power connector

• 4-pin to 8-pin auxiliary power connector

This is the only choice that does not allow for +3.3V.

• ATX

• AT

• ATX12V

Motherboards 1

• Controls high speed access to RAM

• CPU

• Considered the brain of the computer

• Northbridge

• Locations for connecting components

• BIOS Chip

• Used to boot the computer & perform POST

• Expansion Slot

Motherboards 2

• Lets CPU communicate with slow devices

• RAM

• Smaller form factor compatible with ATX

• Southbridge

• Temporary location to store data & apps

• Micro ATX

• Has only 1 PCI slot for expansion cards

• Mini ATX

This is a version of the PCI expansion slot that is used in laptops.

• Mini-PCI

• PCI-x

• PCIe

This expansion sot has x1, x4, x8, and x16 slots.

• PCI

• PCIe

• PCI-X