Internal unit component

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Power supply• A power supply is an electrical supply that powers the

computer and all the components inside the computer. The power supply converts mains AC to low voltage DC power for the internal components of a computer. Modern personal computers universally use a switched-mode power supply.

Motherboard

• A motherboard is the most important piece of hardware in a computer and expandable systems. It holds many of the crucial electronic components of the system, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and memory. It also provides the connectors for other peripherals. The name “Mother” of all comonents attached to it, which often include sound cards, vvideo cards, network cards, hard drives or other forms of persistent storage.

• Motherboards are generally air cooled with heat sinks often mounted on larger chips such as the north bridge (which is explained on the next page).

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south bridge and north bridge (motherboard

• The Northbridge connects directly to the processor via the front side bus (FSB). A memory controller is located on the Northbridge, which gives the CPU fast access to the memory. The Northbridge also connects to the AGP or PCI Express bus and to the memory itself.The southbridge is slower than the northbridge, and information from the CPU has to go through the northbridge before reaching the southbridge. Other busses connect the southbridge to the PCI bus, the USB ports and the IDE or SATA hard disk connections.

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What are the three major components in the motherboard?

• CPU - The CPU (central Processing Unit) is often seen in the motherboard as it is the main core of every computer.

• BIOS - BIOS is the Basic Input Output System which is a non-volatile memory that includes configuration details about the computer. It includes all the system required for the cpu to converse with the keyboard, mouse video display, hard drives and also other connections devices.

• RTC - RTC means Real Time Clock or it is mostly called as CMOS chip which maintains the date, day and time in a 24 hour format just like a watch. The computer uses this clock to ‘time stamp’ files as they are produces and customised.

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RAM

• RAM stands for Random Access Memory. The memory holds all of the information of applications when the computer is turned on.

• When you turn of the computer, all that information that was stored in the memory will have gone.

• ROM stands for Read Only Memory. It is another class of storage medium used in computers and other electornic devices. The data that is automatically stored in ROM, but it can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware.

ROM

Disk Drive

• A hard disk drive (HDD) is a data storage device that is used for storing and retrieving digital information using rapidly roating discs that is coated with magnetic material. An HDD retains its data even when powered off. Data is read in a random-access manner, meaning idividual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order rather than a logical order.

Disc Drives (Continued)

• There are multiple discs or other hardware that can read information. They are:

• Floppy Drives

• CD-ROM

• DVD-ROM

CD RoM

• A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc which contains data. The name is an acronym which stands for “Compact Disc Read-only Memory”. Computers can read CD-ROMs, but cannot write on them. CD ROMs are very popular when distributing computer software or PC games.

DVD-ROM

• DVD is another type of portable memory that can hold a minimum of 4.7GB, enough for a full-length movie.

• The DVD-ROM specification supports disks with capacities of from 4.7GB to 17GB and access rates of 600KBps to 1.3 MBps. One of the best features of DVD-ROM drives is that they are backward-comaptible with CD-ROMs. This means that DVD-ROM players can play old CD-ROMs, CD-I disks, and video CDs, as well as new DVD-ROMs. Newer DVD plays can also read CD-R disks.

A peripheral is a device attached to a host computer, but not part of it, and is more or less dependent on the host.

Peripherals

input devices

StorageData storage is often called storage or

memory.

You can get different methods of peripherals storage. For example,

portable hard-drives, memory sticks and floppy drives. (But, floppy drives are no

longer used.)

input devices(keyboard)

Keyboards are a human interface device that allows the user to input letters into a computer. each key has a letter

on it that can call a command or type that letter into a word document, search engine, etc...

Input device (mouse)

A mouse is another human interface that allows the user to click, drag etc to control the operating system. For

example, if the user wants to go on to the internet, they will click the web browser. instead of writing it into the

cmd.

output devices

output devicesSpeakers are what playsounds or music from a computer. They use a 3.5mm stereo plug. The plug

output(Display)Displays cables are normally USB input devices. the most common ratios are 4:3 and 16:9. The display device in modern monitors is typically a

thin film transistor liquid crystal display

Storage devices

About storage devicesComputer data storage is what computer components and recording media use to retain digital data. It is a core piece of hardware that is in every computer. The CPU is what

handles all the transferring of the data and manipulates data by performing computations. In practice, almost all

computers use a storage hierarchy which puts fast but expensive and small storage options close to the CPU and

slower by larger and cheaper options father away.

Memory sticksMemory sticks are wildly used for easy to use portable devices. The

information on memory sticks are stored on flash memory. You can get memory sticks that hold up to 64GB of space. Most people use them for

storing Photos, documents or movies. The memory stick was launched by Sony in October 1998, and is also

used in general to describe the whole family of Memory Stick.

Hard disk driveHard disk drives are commonly used computers and laptops to

hold information. For example, it holds, pictures, movies, operating system files, word processing documents, etc... hard

disk drives can go up to 7200-rpm but most are normally 5400-rpm. Hard Drives can hold up to 2TB.

Solid state driveSolid state drives are fairly new and are most common in

netbooks. Unlike Hard Disk Drives, solid state drives do not have any moving parts. they are less noisy and and are more money per GB. Solid state drives are a lot faster than hard disk drives because they hold the memory even without

power. Solid state drives can hold up to as much as 2TB but it is a lot more money than having a 2TB hard drive.