Macquarie Fields College of TAFE
Version 2 – 13 March 20002 - HARDWARE
2
System Unit Box
• Expansion slots• Expansion Cards • Ports• Serial & Parallel Ports• Video Port• Keyboard Socket
• Circuit Boards• Power Supply• Motherboard• Disk Drives• Firmware• Transformer• Ribbon Cables
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Connectors
The part of a cable that plugs into a port or interface to
connect one device to another. Most connectors are either male (containing one or more exposed pins) or female (containing holes in which the
male connector can be inserted).
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Connectors
• Can be male (pins) or female (socket)
• Monitors (D9p or s)
• Printers (D25s)
• Mouse (D5s or D9s)
• Keyboards
• 9 – 15 – 25 pins
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Keyboard
Network
Monitor
Printed Circuit Boards
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• Sometimes abbreviated PCB, a thin plate on which chips and other electronic components are placed. Computers consist of one or more boards, often called cards or adapters. Circuit boards fall into the following categories:
Printed Circuit Boards
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• Motherboard: The principal board that has connectors for attaching devices to the bus. Typically, the mother board contains the CPU, memory, and basic controllers for the system.
• Expansion board: Any board that plugs into one of the computer's expansion slots. Expansion boards include controller boards, LAN cards, and video adapters.
Printed Circuit Boards
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• Daughtercard : Any board that attaches directly to another board.
• Controller board: A special type of expansion board that contains a controller for a peripheral device.
• Network Interface Card (NIC) : An expansion board that enables a PC to be connected to a local-area network (LAN).
• Video adapter: An expansion board that contains a controller for a graphics monitor.
Power Supply
When you hit the On switch, one little burst of
electricity – only about five volts – starts a string of
events that magically brings to life your
computer
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Motherboard
Motherboard, main circuit board containing the primary
components of a computer system. This board contains the
processor, main memory, support circuitry, and bus controller and
connector.
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Motherboard
On most PCs, it is possible to add memory chips directly to
the motherboard. You may also be able to upgrade to a faster CP by replacing the CPU chip.
To add additional core features, you may need to replace the
motherboard entirely.
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Disk Drives
• A systems unit can contain a variety of disk drives such as:
• Floppy drive
• Hard drive
• Zip drive
• CD-ROM drive
• DVD-ROM drive
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Firmware (ROM)
Software (programs or data) that has been written onto read-only memory (ROM). Firmware is a combination of software and hardware. ROMs, and PROMs that have data or programs
recorded on them are firmware.
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Firmware (ROM)
• ROM is an acronym for read-only memory, computer memory on which data has been prerecorded.
• Unlike main memory (RAM), ROM retains its contents even when the computer is turned off.
• Most personal computers contain a small amount of ROM that stores critical programs such as the program that boots the computer.
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Firmware (BIOS)
• Pronounced "bye-ose," an acronym for basic input/output system.
• The BIOS is built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk.
• The BIOS is typically placed in a ROM chip that comes with the computer.
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Firmware (BIOS)
• The BIOS makes it possible for a computer to boot itself.
• Many modern PCs have a flash BIOS.
• The PC BIOS is fairly standardised, so all PCs are similar at this level (although there are different BIOS versions).
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Firmware (BIOS)
• PC BIOSes that can handle Plug-and-Play (PnP) devices are known as PnP BIOSes, or PnP-aware BIOSes. These BIOSes are always implemented with flash memory rather than ROM.
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Transformer
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Ribbon CablesA flat, thin cable containing many parallel
wires. Because of their shape, ribbon cables are ideal for situations where space
needs to be conserved.
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Keyboard Socket
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Female Keyboard, Audio, MIDI Connector
9 Pin PS/2 Female Keyboard/Mouse
Expansion SlotsA socket inside a computer,
designed to hold expansion boards and
connect them to the bus. Most personal computers have from three to eight
expansion slots.
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Bus
Expansion Cards
A printed circuit board that you can insert into a computer to give it added capabilities. For example, all of the following are expansion boards:
• video adapters • graphics accelerators • sound cards • accelerator boards • internal modems
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Expansion Cards
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Expansion Cards – Video AdapterA board that plugs into a personal
computer to give it display capabilities. The display capabilities of a computer,
however, depend on both the logical circuitry (provided in the video adapter) and the display monitor. A monochrome
monitor, for example, cannot display colours no matter how powerful the video
adapter.
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Ports
An interface on a computer to which you can connect a device. Personal
computers have various types of ports. Internally, there are several ports for
connecting disk drives, display screens, and keyboards.
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PS/2 Port andPort Cable
Serial Ports
Serial Ports are like a single-lane tunnel. Information fed to it has to squeeze through the port a single bit at a time. Here, the ASCII code for the letter A is sent 1 bit at a time through the port.
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Parallel Ports
Parallel ports are like tunnels with almost the same number of lanes as the highway that feeds them. Information flows through faster since there is little or no constriction.
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Video Port
This picture shows a video card with port containing
connections to a camcorder,
antenna, stereo, TV, VCR, and PC
Monitor.
Macquarie Fields College of TAFE