All About Mother Board

what is Hardware?

Hardware is a Electrical, Mechanical, and Electronic parts.or otherwise all computer peripherals are called hardwares.
some of the hardwares processor, motherboard, hard disk, RAM, CD/Floppy drives, Monitor, Key Board, Mouse, Etc...

MOTHER BOARD:

The motherboard is a large printed circuit board, which has lots of chips, connectors and other electronics mounted on it. Computer nerds simply call it a board.

The motherboard is really just a big plastic sheet which is full of electrical conductors. The conductors (also called tracks) run across and down, and in several layers, in order to connect all the individual components, and transfer data between them.

The motherboard is mounted in the PC box using small plastic brackets and screws. The cabinet and the motherboard are made to suit each other, so there are holes in the metal for the connectors mounted on the board. Finally, the motherboard has to be connected to the PC’s power supply installed in the cabinet. This is done using a standard connector:

DATA Exchange in mother board:

Inside the PC, data is constantly being exchanged between or via the various devices. Most of the data exchange takes place on the motherboard itself, where all the components are connected to each other:

various components on the motherboard:

Chips: The active devices on the motherboard are gathered together in chips. These are tiny electronic circuits which are crammed with transistors. The chips have various functions. For example, there are:

· ROM chips, which store the BIOS and other programs.

· CMOS storage, which contains user-defined data used by the setup program.

· The chipset, which normally consists of two, so-called controllers, which incorporate a number of very essential functions.

Sockets:Sockets are holders, which have been soldered to the motherboard. The sockets are built to exactly match a card or a chip.

· This is how a number of components are directly connected to the motherboard. For example, there are sockets (slots) to mount:

· The CPU and working storage (the RAM modules).

· Expansion cards, also called adapters (PCI, AGP and AMR slots, etc.).

The idea of a socket is, that you can install a component directly on the motherboard without needing special tools. The component has to be pushed carefully and firmly into the socket, and will then hopefully stay there.

Plugs, connectors and ports:The motherboard also contains a number of inputs and outputs, to which various equipment can be connected. Most ports (also called I/O ports) can be seen where they end in a connector at the back of the PC. These are:

· Ports for the keyboard and mouse.

· Serial ports, the parallel port, and USB ports.

· Sockets for speakers/microphone etc.

Often, the various connectors are soldered onto the motherboard, so that the external components, like the keyboard, mouse, printer, speakers, etc., can be connected directly to the motherboard.

· In addition to these sockets, connectors and ports, the motherboard contains a number of other contacts. These include:

· The big connector which supplies the motherboard with power from the power supply

The ROM BIOS chip (Award brand), contains a small collection of programs (software) which are permanently stored on the motherboard, and which are used, for example, when the PC starts up:

At the bottom left, you can see the two rows of pins which connect, for example, to the little speaker inside the cabinet. On the bottom right you can see two “jumpers”.

The round thing is the motherboard battery, which maintains the clock function and any settings saved in the CMOS storage.

The chip set

The motherboard’s busses are regulated by a number of controllers. These are small circuits which have been designed to look after a particular job, like moving data to and from EIDE devices (hard disks, etc.).

A number of controllers are needed on a motherboard, as there are many different types of hardware devices which all need to be able to communicate with each other. Most of these controller functions are grouped together into a couple of large chips, which together comprise the chip set.

The two chips which make up the chipset, and which connect the motherboard’s busses.

TYPES: The most widespread chipset architecture consists of two chips, usually called the north and south bridges. This division applies to the most popular chipsets from VIA and Intel.

The north bridge and south bridge are connected by a powerful bus, which sometimes is called a link channel:The north bridge and south bridge share the work of managing the data traffic on the motherboard.

The north bridge

The north bridge is a controller which controls the flow of data between the CPU and RAM, and to the AGP port. you can see the north bridge, which has a large heat sink attached to it. It gets hot because of the often very large amounts of data traffic which pass through it. All around the north bridge you can see the devices it connects:

The north bridge and its immediate surroundings. A lot of traffic runs through the north bridge, hence the heat sink.

The AGP is actually an I/O port. It is used for the video card. In contrast to the other I/O devices, the AGP port is connected directly to the north bridge, because it has to be as close to the RAM as possible. The same goes for the PCI Express x16 port, which is the replacement of AGP in new motherboards. But more on that later.

The south bridge:

The south bridge incorporates a number of different controller functions. It looks after the transfer of data to and from the hard disk and all the other I/O devices, and passes this data into the link channel which connects to the north bridge. you can clearly see that the south bridge is physically located close to the PCI slots, which are used for I/O devices.

The chipset’s south bridge combines a number of controller functions into a single chip.

The various chipset manufacturers

Originally it was basically only Intel who supplied the chipsets to be used in motherboards. This was quite natural, since Intel knows everything about their own CPU’s and can therefore produce chipsets which match them. But at the time the Pentium II and III came out, other companies began to get involved in this market. The Taiwanese company, VIA, today produces chipsets for both AMD and Intel processors, and these are used in a large number of motherboards.

Other companies (like SiS, nVidia, ATI and ALi) also produce chipsets, but these haven’t (yet?) achieved widespread use. The CPU manufacturer, AMD, produces some chipsets for their own CPU’s, but they also work together closely with VIA as the main supplier for Athlon motherboards.

The Taiwanese company, VIA, has been a leader in the development of new chipsets in recent years.

Since all data transfers are managed by the chipset’s two bridges, the chipset is the most important individual component on the motherboard, and new chipsets are constantly being developed.

The chipset determines the limits for clock frequencies, bus widths, etc. The chipset’s built-in controllers are also responsible for connecting I/O devices like hard disks and USB ports, thus the chipset also determines, in practise, which types of devices can be connected to the PC.

The two chips which make up a typical chipset. Here we have VIA’s model P4X266A, which was used in early motherboards for Pentium 4 processors.

Sound, network, and graphics in chipsets

Developments in recent years have led chipset manufacturers to attempt to place more and more functions in the chipset.

These extra functions are typically:

· Video card (integrated into the north bridge)

· Sound card (in the south bridge)

· Modem (in the south bridge)

· Network and Firewire (in the south bridge)

All these functions have traditionally been managed by separate devices, usually plug-in cards, which connect to the PC. But it has been found that these functions can definitely be incorporated into the chipset.

Motherboard with built-in sound functionality.

Intel has, for many years, managed to produce excellent network cards (Ethernet 10/100 Mbps); so it is only natural that they should integrate this functionality into their chipsets.

Sound facilities in a chipset cannot be compared with “real” sound cards (like, for example, Sound Blaster Audigy). But the sound functions work satisfactorily if you only want to connect a couple of small speakers to the PC, and don’t expect perfect quality.

This PC has two sound cards installed, as shown in this Windows XP dialog box. The VIA AC’97 is a sound card emulation which is built into the chipset.

Many chipsets also come with a built-in video card. The advantage is clear; you can save having a separate video card.

Again, the quality can’t be compared with what you get with a separate, high quality, video card. But if you don’t particularly need support for multiple screens, DVI (for flat screens), super 3D performance for games, or TV-out, the integrated graphics controller can certainly do the job.

This PC uses a video card which is built into the Intel i810 chipset.

It is important that the integrated sound and graphics functions can be disabled, so that you can replace them with a real sound or video card. The sound functions won’t cause any problems; you can always ask Windows to use a particular sound card instead of another one.

But the first Intel chipset with integrated graphics (the i810) did not allow for an extra video card to be installed. That wasn’t very smart, because it meant users were locked into using the built-in video card. In the subsequent chipset (i815), the problem was resolved.

Buying a motherboard

Once you have decided on a processor, you should try to get a motherboard with the latest chipset available, because new versions of chipsets continue to be released, with greater functionality. At the time of writing, for example, chipsets often include these functions:

• USB version 2.0,
• Dual channel RAM,
• Support for 400 and 533 MHz DDR2 RAM
• Integrated Firewire ports
• Serial ATA
• Surround sound
• Gigabit Ethernet

You will most likely want to have these facilities (which are described later in the guide) on your PC. That is why it is important to choose the right motherboard with the latest generation chipset.

If you want to build a PC yourself, you have to start by choosing a motherboard. It is the foundation for the entire PC.

Most of the motherboards on the market are produced in Taiwan, where manufacturers like Microstar, Asus, Epox, Soltek and many others supply a wide range of different models. Note that a producer like Microstar supplies motherboards to brand name manufacturers like Fujitsu-Siemens, so you can comfortably trust in the quality. Taiwan is the leader in the area of motherboards.

The first issue to work out is, which CPU you want to use. For example, if you want to use a Pentium 4 from Intel, there is one line of motherboards you can choose between. If you choose an AthlonXP, there is another line. And the difference lies in which chipset is being used in the motherboard.

Extra facilities

In addition, it can sometimes be worth choosing a motherboard which has extra facilities. For example, all manufacturers have “luxury models” with built-in RAID controllers, making it possible to install several hard disks. There are motherboards around with loads of extra facilities, such as:

· Built-in RAID or (seldom) SCSI controller.

· Other network, screen and sound facilities.

· Wireless LAN.

· SmartCard/MemoryStick/etc. readers.

One of the advantages of building your own PC is that you can choose a really exciting motherboard.

Development is taking place rapidly, and by choosing the right motherboard, you can design the absolute latest PC on the market.