Rosales, Mary Joyce Rae M.

The motherboard is a vital component that is responsible for smooth processing of data occurs on
a computer. There was a little damage to the motherboard will cause damage to the entire
system, because the motherboard is place for all the hardware components attached. Start from
the graphics card, RAM, hard disk, optical drive, all combined into one unit by using the port in
the motherboard. Below is list of general motherboard component :
1. CPU Socket : This section is the place laid a processor even with the many small holes
that are used to place a pin processor.
2. RAM Slots : Places to install the memory module (RAM). For a modern motherboard,
usually there are 4 slots DDR2 PC 6400 with a capacity of up to 8GB and support for
dual-channel configuration.
3. Power Port : Old type use 20 +4 pin, while new types have been using 24 +4 pin.
Through this port all the power needed by the system supplied through the power supply.
4. Serial ATA Port : The new type motherboard using this port. Usually there are 4 to 8. It is
used for hard disk drives where using SATA interface. Cable that is used is usually
smaller than the IDE cable. SATA technology is growing rapidly, at this time is to reach
the next generation of SATA-2 with data transfer speeds up to 3Gb/s.
5. IDE Port : It is only found in old type of motherboard. That is used to install the hard disk
drive and optical drives, it has an large size of the cable width.
6. Chip-set : A chip that regulates the data traffic on the system. There are 2 types of chip
set with a different function with each other. North-bridge chip-set is located between the
processor and RAM slots. This chip-set works so RAM and processor modules can work
together (set of traffic data between the CPU and RAM). South-brigde chip-set is located
on the bottom. Either the bottom of the processor or under the slot for graphics cards.
Chip-set handle this work flow of traffic data from the graphics card, hard disk and other
motherboard peripherals.
7. AGP / PCI Express Slot : Used to install the graphics card. AGP slot is rarely found in
the new type, because the resulting bandwidth is not sufficient for the needs of graphics
at this time. Now, almost all motherboards use the PCI Express slot, with a larger
bandwidth. In fact, there are motherboards that have up to 4 PCI Express slots.
8. PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) : Is the place to put additional cards such as
sound card, LAN card, TV tuner, and others. It is working at 33 Mhz frequency.
9. BIOS (Basic Input Output System) : Form of software that is embedded in the
motherboard where the energy supplied from the motherboard battery. All initial
configuration of the hardware that is installed can be accessed and changed through the
BIOS.