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Terms 4
Definitions and Questions
Motherboard
The main board of a computer, usually
containing the circuitry for the central processing
unit, keyboard, and monitor and often having
slots for accepting additional circuitry.
Motherboard: abrev. mobo aka "system board or main board"
The main circuit board in the computer. This is the big green circuit
board that contains the CPU, memory, mass storage and all the
controllers required to control standard peripheral devices.
The mother board consists of a flat board that fills one side of the
case. It attaches through connections called ports located in the
back of the computer. The processor chip and memory chip are also
installed on the mother board. It allows the expanding the PC's
capabilities through additional circuit boards such as; sound, video,
and communications.
Motherboard
Jumpers
Jumpers allow the computer to close an electrical circuit
allowing the electricity to flow throughout certain sections
of the circuit board. Generally, the jumpers consist of a
set small pins which can be covered with a small plastic
box. This box connects the two pins together allowing
the electricity to flow freely between the two pins.
Jumpers are used to configure computer peripherals
such as Hard Drives, Modems, Sound Cards, and
various other components. For example, when installing
a new hard drive, you may need to change the jumper
settings depending if the hard drive is a master drive or a
slave drive.
Jumpers
Motherboard / Jumper Q/A
Q: Describe these two pictures.
A: In the first picture, we see a jumper.
In the second picture, a shunt has
been placed over the jumper, closing
the circuit.
Motherboard / Jumper
BIOS
BIOS – short for basic input/output system
The BIOS runs at the startup sequence
where it configures devices and then boots
the operating system.
The function of the BIOS is so vital that the
information on the BIOS is stored on a
ROM chip separate from the hard drive to
protect it from potential crashes.
BIOS
BIOS Flashing
BIOS software is in some regards like other software.
There are newer versions available that contain updates,
enhanced, features, new features, and bug fixes. It is
possible to install newer BIOS versions and upgrade, but
the process is different from upgrading regular software
that's installed on your computer.
The BIOS software is not stored on the hard drive, but in
a chip on the motherboard. To erase the software on the
chip and program it with a newer software version you
need to use a special program called a flash utility, and
the process of performing the upgrade is called flashing
the BIOS.
You should only flash your BIOS if you’re SURE you
know what you’re doing.
BIOS Flashing
BIOS / BIOS Flashing Q/A
Q: Name some of the things you can
configure in your BIOS.
A: The order in which your computer boots
(HDD, Floppy Drive, CD-ROM), basic
hardware settings for expansion cards,
memory, and your processor (bus speeds,
multipliers), the date & time, automatic
virus detection, which of your drives is
primary on a given channel, etc.
BIOS
Overclocking
Overclocking is a process that users sometimes perform on
computer components to force upon the component an increased
clock rate, or cycles per second (hertz) at which the component
performs.
This is commonly done to processors, video cards, motherboard
chips, and RAM. The process can be done to components that
have lower capabilities to make them go at decent speeds or to
components that have high capabilities to go at speeds that surpass
the fastest speeds on the market. Excess power must be supplied
to the component to ensure that the increased speed has enough
power to operate, but not so much as to overpower it.
Overclocking requires a cooling process of some sort (heat sinks,
powerful fans, water cooling, etc.) to remove excess heat produced
by overclocked components.
Overclocking Q/A
•Q: What is going on here?
•A: System A is being air cooled, in order to overclock it. System B is being
water cooled for the same reason. (NOT RECOMMENDED)
System A
System B
Overclocking (Professional)
Dual-booting
A computer with two operating systems. At startup, a
boot manager program lets the user choose which one
to load. "Multiboot" may refer to a dual boot system or to
one that hosts more than two operating systems. For
example, V Communications' System Commander lets
you install all the operating systems you wish on one PC
and choose which one you want at startup.
Dual booting and multibooting are not the same as a
"virtual machine," although sometimes the terms are
used synonymously. Virtual machines host multiple
operating systems, but can run them all at the same
time.
Dual-booting Q/A
Q: Can you triple boot? Quadruple boot?
What’s the limit?
A: Yes and yes. You are only limited by the
size of your hard drive and the number of
partitions (virtual drive separations that
make the computer treat 1 physical hard
drive as being composed of several parts).
Dual-booting (LILO)
Cache memory, L1 cache, L2 cache
Cache memory is random access memory (RAM) that a
computer microprocessor can access more quickly than
it can access regular RAM. As the microprocessor
processes data, it looks first in the cache memory and if
it finds the data there (from a previous reading of data), it
does not have to do the more time-consuming reading of
data from larger memory
L1 cache - Level 1 cache. A small cache integrated in a
processor that provides quick access to the most
recently used data.
L2 cache - Level 2 cache. L2 cache has the same
purpose as L1 cache, but is usually not integrated into
the processor. L2 cache is traditionally made of SRAM
and in socket 7 and older motherboards was in some
cases upgradeable
Cache memory, L1 cache, L2 cache Q/A
Why don’t you just add more cache?
http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/futurememory/page3.asp
AMD Opteron core
AMD Opteron – caches, etc
Cache memory, L1 cache, L2 cache
This is a Pentium from
1993!
Now processor cores
are even smaller.
Cache memory, L1 cache, L2 cache