Brief Introduction of Motherboard

November 28th, 2008 Posted by Edy
in Category Computer Parts, Motherboard |

Motherboard is one of the main components of a computer and made of the printed circuit board (PCB).

The motherboard is also known as mainboard, system board, logic board or sometimes, shortened as “mobo”.

It serves as the backbone of a system because it provides all the electrical connections by which other components of the system communicate.

Aside from that, it hosts the central processing unit (CPU), and other devices.

The parts of the motherboard are shown in the example below:

Processor Socket – this is where the processor is placed. On the picture above, the processor socket is Socket 478, which means that the compatible processor for this type of socket is Pentium 4.
Memory Module Slot – this is where the DDR DIMM is placed. Typical motherboards have 4 memory modules that can have a maximum of 1 GB of memory per slot.
North Bridge Chipset – Chipset located on the north bridge or near the CPU handles communication among CPU, RAM, AGP or PCI-Express and the South Bridge Chipset.
South Bridge Chipset – Chipset located on the south bridge supports input/output devices.
ATX Power Connector – this is where the power supply connected. Typical motherboards have 20-pin connectors. But new motherboards are now 24-pin power connector ready. Users can either place a 20-pin or 24-pin ATX connector.
HDD IDE Connector – this is where the IDE hard disk and CDROM drives are placed.
SATA Connector – SATA means Serial Advancement Technology Attachment. Its primary function is to transfer data between motherboard and media storage device. It offers faster data transfer rate.
Floppy – This is where the floppy drive connector is placed. Floppy drives are still important to computer systems especially when a user wants to have an emergency disk of a particular program.
AGP slot – This is the slot for the video card. Older motherboards still have AGP slots but as technology advances, AGP slots are now considered obsolete on new and modern motherboards.
PCI-Express – This is also the slot for the video card. It mainly replaces the functions of the AGP slot and it offers faster connection.
PCI slots – These are the slots where we can place extra network interface cards, modem cards, and other external cards used in computers.
Rear panel – This is also called the back panel of the computer. This is where the ports of mouse, keyboard, COM, USB, and Audio are located.
Front panel – This panel consists of connections for power, reset, sound, HDD LED, and power LED. This panel also consists of USB ports, depending on the architecture of the motherboard.