Computer Hardware

NOTE:- This book is currently in the process of being processors have two or three levels of cache, containing
merged. Some data could be out of place or already as much as several megabytes of memory.
merged. Personal Computers (PCs) can be obtained in
Dual Core
desktop, laptop, notebook and other portable formats.
Some of the new processors made by Intel and AMD are
They are used in all areas of society.
Dual core. The Intel designation for dual core are PenThis module describes the parts of typical desktop per- tium D, Core Duo and Core 2 Duo while AMD has
sonal computers.
its X2 series and FX-6x.
please add your contributions

The core is where the data is processed and turned into

commands directed at the rest of the computer. Having two cores increases the data ow into the processor
and the command ow out of the processor potentially
doubling the processing power, but the increased performance is only visible with multithreaded applications and
heavy multitasking.

Note: Should this stu be moved to other pages?

Here is how : Help:Editing
The Motherboard and things directly attached to it.

Computer chassis and screen, preferly with standard

Hyper Threading
sizes (i.e. ISO A4 for notebook chassis).
Hyper Threading is a technology that uses one core but
Storage media
adds a virtual processor to an additional thread at the same
time.
Other peripherals
Normally the processor carries out one task and then proceeds onto the next task. But with Hyper Threading the
--processor continually switches in-between each task as if
Class 1 components are integral to the function of the to do them at the same time.
computer.
For more information, consult the Wikipedia article on
microprocessors.

CPU

The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the 'brain' of the

computer.
Its typically a square ceramic package plugged into the
motherboard, with a large heat sink on top (and often a
fan on top of that heat sink).

2 Case

All instructions the computer will process are processed

by the CPU. There are many CPU architectures, each
of which has its own characteristics and trade-os. The
dominant CPU architectures used in personal computing
are x86 and PowerPC. x86 is easily the most popular processor for this class of machine (the dominant manufacturers of x86 CPUs are Intel and AMD). X64 is currently
replacing X86 as it has superior performance. X86 is 32
bit that means it has 6 0s and 1s to use at one instance
while X64 can use 7 0s and 1s. Some programs are offered in 64-bit only.

Most modern computers have an "ATX form factor" case

in which ATX-compatible power supplies, Mainboards
and Drives can be mounted.
.

During the 1980s and 1990s almost all cases were beige,
even Apples Macintosh line. A few rare exceptions to
this were black. Only recently have computer case designers realized that there was a worthwhile market for
other colors and designs. This has led to all sorts of modThe other architectures are used, for instance, in worksta- ications to the basic design of a computer case. Now it is
tions, servers or embedded systems CPUs contain a small easy to nd cases with transparent windows and glowing
amount of static RAM (SRAM) called a cache. Some lights illuminating their insides.
1

8 PCI CARDS

Power Supply

processor.

Some of the types of RAM are SDRAM, SRAM, DDR

All computers have some sort of power supply. This con- RAM, Rambus RAM, SIMM, DIMM.
verts the supply voltage (AC 110 or 220V) to dierent
voltages such as DC 5V, 12V and 3.3V. These are needed
inside the computer system by nearly every component 5.1 External Links
inside the computer.
There will be a bunch of connectors coming o of the
supply, called Molex connectors. They come in varying sizes, meant for dierent applications, such as the
motherboard (usually the largest of the connectors), the
hard and optical drives (a bunch of medium-sized connectors), as well as the oppy drive (a relatively small
connector, also saw usage among videocards in 2004). As
newer standards come out, the types of connectors have
changed. Many power supplies now come with power
connectors for Serial ATA hard drives. These are smaller
and are hot-swappable, meaning they can be removed
and plugged in again without fear of data loss or electrical
problems.

http://www.kingston.com/tools/umg/default.asp
(Ultimate memory guide)

6 PCI Express Cards/Slots

The PCI Express standard was created to replace both
AGP and PCI slots, with PCI Express 16x and PCI 1x
respectively for most implementations. The current implementation of PCI Express allows up to PCI Express
32x.
The reason for the change is that the older PCI cards don't
transfer data quickly enough to keep up with modern day
gaming, autocad and video editing software.

Motherboard

Think of it this way, there is a tap that is two inches in

diameter, but a drain that is only one inch in diameter.
The Motherboard (also called Mainboard) is a large, thin, The water doesn't drain quickly enough and eventually the
at, rectangular berglass board (typically green in the sink overows. Just like a PCI video card.
past but are now typically black due to consumer demands) attached to the case. The Motherboard carries
the CPU, the RAM, the chipset and the expansion slots
7 AGP Cards
(PCI, AGP - for graphics -, ISA, etc.).
The Motherboard also holds things like the BIOS (Basic
Most graphic cards produced from about 1998-2004 were
Input Output System) and the CMOS Battery (a coin cell
AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) cards. They are placed
that keeps an embbeded RAM in the motherboard -often
in a certain slot on the mainboard with an extra high
NVRAM- powered to keep various settings in eect).
data transfer rate. The interface was invented to keep the
Most modern motherboards have onboard sound and graphics card away from the PCI bus, which was starting
LAN controller, some of them even have on-board graph- to become too constrained for modern graphics cards.
ics. These are adequate for standard oce work and
Every graphic card carries a graphic chip (GPU) and very
system sounds. But dedicated sound and graphics cards
fast DDR RAM for textures and 3D data. Their data
plugged into the expansion slots oer much better quality
buses have 1X, 2X, 4X, and 8X speeds. The bus is 32-bit,
and performance
much like PCI.
A motherboard includes many components such as
AGP slots are slightly shorter than PCI slots and often
CPU,RAM,FIRMWARE,INTERAL AND EXTERbrown in color. A similar type of slot called AGP Pro is
NAL BUSES.
longer and has extra power leads to accommodate modern video cards. It didn't really catch on in the mainstream
market, and graphics card makers preferred to add an extra power connector to supply the power they needed.
5 RAM
Random Access Memory (RAM) is a memory that the
microprocessor uses to store data during processing. This
memory is volatile (loses its contents at power-down).
When a software application is launched, the executable
program is loaded from hard drive to the RAM. The microprocessor supplies address into the RAM to read instructions and data from it. RAM is needed because hard
drives are too slow to operate with the speed of a micro-

8 PCI Cards
The PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus is the
most popular internal interconnect for personal computers. They are usually white in color.
The specication features:

10.2

USB Flash drive

Plug and play conguration (through standardised 10.2 USB Flash drive
means for interacting with conguration software)
Class 3 components are components which allow humans
Standardised electrical connections
to interface with computers.
Common PCI implementations in desktop PCs feature:
32-bit addressing
33-MHz bus clock
High-end implementations may also feature:

11 Display device
Includes computer monitors and other display devices.
CRTs and LCDs are common. LCDs are a more recent development, and are gradually replacing CRTs as
they become more aordable. LCDs in addition to being lighter also use less energy and generate less heat.

64-bit addressing
Hot plugging (the ability to add / remove PCI devices from a running machine)

12 Sound Output
Includes internal or external speakers and headphones.

66-MHz bus clock

(all of these are characteristic of PCI-X)
There have been many revisions and evolutions of the PCI
specication over the years. Recently, PCI-X has sought
to extend the aging architecture for the needs of modern
server-class machines, avoiding some of the performance
bottlenecks of previous revisions. The new PCI Express
specication seems likely to succeed PCI in all classes of
personal computer within the next few years.

ISA Cards

Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) cards were the

original PC extension cards. Originally running on an 8bit bus, they ran on a 16-bit bus as of 1984. Like PCI
slots, they supported Plug-and-Play as of 1993 (prior to
this, one had to set jumpers for IRQ interrupts and such).
In comparison to PCI slots, they are rather long, and often black in color. They are not found on most computers
built after 1999.

13 Mouse
A user interface device that can enable dierent kinds of
control than a keyboard, particularly in GUIs. It was developed at the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center)
and adopted and made popular with the Apple Mac. Today, nearly all modern operating systems can use a mouse.
Most mice (sometimes the plural is 'mouses to prevent
confusion with the rodent) are made from plastic, and
may use a ball to track movement, an LED light, or a
laser. Today you can get a wireless mouse that allows you
to easily give a presentation without being tied to a desk.
These mouses are usually LED or Laser based tracking.

13.1 History

In 1964, the rst prototype computer mouse was made

to use with a graphical user interface (GUI), windows.
Douglas Engelbart received a patent for the wooden shell
with two metal wheels (computer mouse U.S. Patent #
3,541,541) in 1970, describing it in the patent application
as an X-Y position indicator for a display system.. It
was nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the
10 Other removable media
end, Engelbart revealed about his invention. His version
of windows was not considered patentable (no software
patents were issued at that time), but Douglas Engelbart
10.1 Flash memory
has over 45 other patents to his name. There was also a
Some common types of Flash memory cards are Com- DB-9 connector that was used to be an old serial mouse
pactFlash, Secure Digital (SD), and xD. There are other connector.
formats which are falling into disuse, such as Smartmedia
(SM) and MultiMediaCard (MMC).
Flash memory is faster than magnetic media and much 14 Keyboard
more rugged. The main reason Flash hasn't yet replaced
hard drives is that Flash memory is much more expensive A keyboard is an input device which is connected to a
computer and used to type instructions or information
per gigabyte than hard drives.

18

into the computer. Typically, a keyboard has about 100

or so keys.

CD-ROMS

17 Modem

A contraction of Modulator - demodulator, a modem

allows a computer to communicate over an analogue
medium (most commonly a telephone line). The modem
encodes digital signals from the computer as analogue signals suitable for transmission (modulation) and decodes
digital data from a modulated analogue signal (demodu Many laptop computers do not include a number lation). Using modems two computers may communicate
pad. (There is sometimes a function on the keyboard over a telephone line, with the data passed between them
to enable a numpad-like mode.)
being represented as sound.
Keyboards dier between languages. Most Englishspeaking people use what is called a QWERTY layout. This refers to the order of the top row of keys.
Some foreign languages (i. e. German) use QWERTZ, where the Z and Y are switched.

Modern keyboards sometimes have extra controls Modems are usually involved with dial-up internet sersuch as volume, and keys that can be programmed vices. As broadband catches on, they are falling into disuse. However, the devices used to connect to broadband
to bring up programs of the users choice.
connections are also called modems, specically DSL
Modems or Cable Modems.

15

Printer

A printer makes marks on paper. It can print images and

text.

18 CD-Roms

The most common types of printers today are

Laser printer: Prints very crisp text, but cheaper
models can only print in black and white. Good
for places like oces where high printing speed is
needed.
Color inkjet printer: Prints photos and other images
in color (using 4 colors of ink -- cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), but the text they print is often not
as crisp as a laser printer.

A CDROM (compact disk read-only memory), also written as CD-ROM, is a type of optical storage media that
allows data to be written to it only once. This contrasts
with memory, whose contents can be accessed (i.e., read
and written to) at extremely high speeds but which are retained only temporarily (i.e., while in use or only as long
as the power supply remains on). Although the disc media
and the drives of the CD and CD-ROM are, in principle,
the same, there is a dierence in the way data storage is
organized. Two new sectors were dened, Mode 1 for
storing computer data and Mode 2 for compressed audio
or video/graphic data.

The average printer of the early 1990s would connect to

a computer through its parallel port. To connect it to the
computer via parallel port, one would have to screw it
into the port. Today many printers are connected through
USB. This is because it is easier to connect and remove
through a simple plug and play system. It also allows for 18.1 CD-ROM Mode 1
faster transfer speeds than parallel.
It is the mode used for CD-ROMs that carry data and applications only. In order to access the thousands of data
les that may be present on this type of CD, precise ad16 Scanner
dressing is necessary
A scanner is a device for digitizing paper documents into
images that may be manipulated by a computer. The two
main classes of scanner are

18.2 CD-ROM Mode 2

hand-held scanners (in which the user manually

drags a small scanning head over the document), and CD-ROM Mode 2 is used for compressed audio/video
information and uses only two layers of error detection
at-bed scanners (which are designed to accommoand correction, the same as the CD-DA. Therefore, all
date a whole sheet of paper, which is then examined
2,336 bytes of data behind the sync and header bytes are
by a motorised scanning head).
for user data
If the original document contained text, Optical Charac- There are many dierent types of connectors and cables
ter Recognition (OCR) software may be used to recon- in personal computers, and this section will address as
struct the text of the document from the scanned images. many as the various editors deem relevant.

19

Internal Connectors

20 External Connectors

Several types of cables are used to connect components Without connections to the rest of the world, a computer
together inside the case, providing power and a path for would just be a fancy paperweight. Numerous connectors
data. These include:
are used to make a computer useful.
Motherboard Power Connector: This connector is
designed especially to move electricity from the
power supply to the motherboard. Older computers
use the AT power connections, with two six-pin connectors lined up side by side. ATX motherboards
used a single connector with 20 pins arranged in two
rows of 10.
Many motherboards now also use supplementary power connectors, such as a 4 pin plug
specically for the CPU supply.
Some others have more than 20 pins for the
main connector. The extra pins are in the form
of a 'separate' connector, that ts onto the end
of the standard 20 pin connector. This may be
used or not as required by the particular motherboard.
The PCI-e inteface may also require the use of
further power cables from the power supply.
Power Connectors for Drives: Hard drives, optical drives, and, increasingly, high-end video cards
use a 4-wire power connection, of which several are
available from a power supply. Floppy drives use a
smaller connector.
With the introduction of the SATA interface
for data another type of power connector for
drives was also introduced. This is thinner
than the previous power connector.
40 and 80-pin IDE Cables: These cables are used by
hard drives and optical drives to transfer data to and
from the motherboard. These are now sometimes
called PATA (Parallel ATA) cables to dierentiate
from the more recent SATA.
SATA (Serial ATA) Cables: These cables are now
used by most hard drives and even optical drives to
carry data to and from the motherboard. They are
much thinner than PATA ribbon cables, and the connectors are much smaller. Generally red coloured.
SATA drives generally also require a new type
of power connector, though some can also use
the older white 'Molex' plug. Adaptors are
available if the power supply doesn't have the
correct connector.
34-pin Floppy Cables: These are used to connect
oppy drives to oppy disk connectors on the mainboard/motherboard.

AT Keyboard Connector: Found on older computers, this connector is large and round with ve pins.
PS/2 Connector: This connector is currently the
most popular for connecting both the keyboard and
mouse. Note that older mice once used serial ports
(dened below), and newer mice frequently use the
Universal Serial Bus (USB).
VGA Connector: This connector has 3 rows of 5
pins each, and is used to connect the computer to
the display screen.
Parallel Port (DB-25): This connector is commonly
used to interface with printers, and can also transfer
between computers. It has been mostly replaced by
USB.
Serial Port (DB-9): This 9-pin connector is used to
connect all sorts of devices, but is being replaced by
USB. It has been used in the past to connect mice
and transfer data between computers.
Universal Serial Bus (USB): This relatively recent
connector can connect the computer to almost anything. It has been used for storage devices, printers, sound, mice, keyboards, cameras, and even networking. USB 2.0 allows transfer speeds of up to
480 Mbps.
FireWire (IEEE 1394) port: This high-speed connection runs at 400Mbps (1394a) or 800Mbps
(1394b), and can connect up to 63 external devices
to a single port. Most digital camcorders have a
rewire port to connect to a computer.
RJ-11 (phone) Connectors: This is the type of connector you will see on phones and modems. It is not
used for much else.
RJ-45 Connectors: These are used to connect computers to an Ethernet network. Maximum speed of
such a connection is now 1000 Mbps (= 1Gbps).
Audio Connectors: Three of these connectors can
be found on an average sound card, and are used
to connect to microphones (usually pink), speakers (usually green), and other audio devices (usually blue). The external device connector is usually
a silver-colored or gold-plated plug that ts into a
round hole.

21

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TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Computer Hardware Source: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Computer%20Hardware?oldid=2771491 Contributors: Matithyahu, DavidCary, Robert Horning, Dhuss~enwikibooks, Joel7687, Mshonle, Opablo~enwikibooks, Lobster, Icairns, Geocachernemesis, Mkn, Codeman~enwikibooks, Idolcrash~enwikibooks, Aleron235~enwikibooks, Derbeth, Darklama, Wae, Kernigh, Jomegat, Torcity, Dougmurray42, Hagindaz, Wknight8111, Webaware, AndreniW, Xania, Herbythyme, AdRiley, CrookedAsterisk, Pplude92, Recent Runes, QuiteUnusual, Sigma 7, Adrignola, Raylton P. Sousa, MassGalactusUniversum, Avicennasis, Reyk, Hoo man, JamesCrook, Greenbreen, Symbiankreatif, 220 of Borg, Lukas, Jakec, Meditation, Leaderboard, Syum90, Dexbot, CallumPoole, Anandaraj, Anandaraj shunmugam and
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