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Home Computer Awareness Computer Hardware Parts of

the Personal Computer

Computer Hardware Parts of the

Personal Computer
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Computer
Hardware

by

Rajesh Goyal

The Major
Parts of the
Computer :-

Central Processing Unit (popularly known as CPU)

it consists of different technical parts like processor,
motherboard, hard disc, RAM, CD Drive and cabinet
with SMPS.
Monitor / Screen
Keyboard
Mouse

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The major accessories of the computer system ?

. In addition to the above referred major components of the
computer, we find the following accessories attached to most of
the computers :-

Speakers
Printers
Scanners
Modem
Microphone

Various Hardware Components of A Personal Computer :

PC Case :

It consists of a thin sheet metal

enclosure that houses the motherboard, power

supply and various drives (HDD, FDD, CD,
DVD). These cases come in two shapes / styles
desktop and tower. Now a days the tower
type is predominant. It stands upright and is
much taller than it is wide. It is usually placed
on the floor near the desk or under the top of
the desk. On the other hand desktop version is
pizza box profile and usually placed on the
desktop.

Motherboard :

The motherboard is the

main circuit board in a PC. It contains all the

circuits and components that run the PC.
Major Components found on the motherboard
are:

CPU -

Full form of CPU is Central Processing Unit

or commonly known as processor.

CPU consists of

electronic circuits that interpret and execute instructions.

It communicates with the input, output and storage
devices. CPU, with the help of memory, executes
instructions in the repetition of machine cycles.

It is the

brain of every PC. We can say that the CPU is the hardware
device in a computer that executes all of the instructions

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from the software. All scheduling, computation and control

occurs here.

There are two major makers of CPUs namely Intel

and AMD. We often hear that CPU is Intel Pentium or
Celeron. Currently the Pentium chip or processor, made by
Intel, is the most common CPU though there are many
other companies that produce processors for personal
computers. like CPU made by Motorola and AMD. The
speed of a microprocessor is measured in megahertz, or
cycles per second.

A MHz is a million machine cycles per

second. A personal computer of 500 MHz has a processor

capable of handling 500 million machine cycles per second.
Another measure of speed is gigahertz (GHz), which means
a billion machine cycles per second.

BIOS
System.

Full form of BIOS is Basic Input Output

It is a non-volatile memory that contains

configuration information about the PC. It contains all

the code required for the CPU to communicate with
the keyboard, mouse video display, disk drives and
communications devices.

When a PC is powered on it uses the BIOS boot code to set up

many required functions that bring the PC to a point where it is
ready to work.

RTC

Full form is Real Time Clock.

This chip

keeps date, day and time in a 24 hour format just

like our watch. The PC uses this clock to time stamp
files as these are created and / or modified.

Chip Set - these are large chip(s) that

integrate many functions that used to be found in
separate smaller chips on the motherboard. They
save space and cost.

The functions performed by these chip sets often broken into two
devices with one providing an interface from the CPU to the
memory and the other providing controllers for IDE, ISA, PCI and
USB devices (see below).

In addition to above, in a PC, you will notice a number of

connectors on the mother board.

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(a)Primary Connectors :

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Some of such primary

connectors are :

(b)Power -

A 20 pin connector accepts a plug from

the power supply. This plug carry DC power to all the circuits on
the motherboard.

Keyboard - A Mini-din 6-pin (round) connector

found at the back of the motherboard is where the keyboard

plugs in.

(d) Mouse - A Mini-din 6-pin connector found next

to the keyboard connector is where the where the mouse plugs

in.

(e) Display - This connector is not integrated into

the motherboard but is included in this list since its function is

absolutely necessary. It is a 15-pin, D-shell type connector found
on a video card that plugs into the AGP connector of the
motherboard (see below).

(f) IDE - stands for Integrated Drive Electronics.

These are 40 pin connectors that provide a place to connect the

ribbon cables from the drives (hard and CD/DVD). All data
between the motherboard and the drives is carried in these
cables. They are not accessible unless the PC cover is removed.

(g) FDD connector -

it is similar in function to

the IDE connector. It is a 34 pin ribbon connector that carries

data between the motherboard and any floppy drive installed in
the PC. Not accessible with PC cover on.

(h) DRAM -

Dynamic Random Access Memory

connectors for SIMM and DIMM type memory modules. Not

accessible with chassis cover on.

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PORTS or Connectors

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enable us to connect external

output or input devices to our computer. The basic types of ports

are: Parallel ports can be used to connect printers, zip drives,
video capture (such as Snappy), external hard drives, or digital
cameras.

Serial ports that are frequently used to connect all

of the above except printers. In addition, there are some serial

port mice. PS2 ports are used to connect some types of mice.
There are also places on your computer to attach a keyboard and
s-video cable.

(A)Serial Connectors
o

Standard Serial Connector - This connector

has been around in PCs since they first appeared. It was

originally located on ISA expansion type cards (see below). Today
it is an integral part of newer motherboards. It is a 9- pin, D-shell
connector that allows you to connect external devices with serial
ports to your PC. The maximum data rate is 115 KB/s.

USB Universal Serial Bus This is a relatively

new serial bus. Originally specified as low speed, 1.2 Mb/s, it was
enhanced to full speed, 12Mb/s. The latest version 2.0 is
specified as high speed, 400 MB/s.

Someday USB will completely replace the standard serial

connector that has been the workhorse serial port in earlier PCs.
USB is now a standard connector on all new motherboards.
Unlike serial and parallel ports, the USB port is designed to
power devices connected to it. The devices must be low
power devices and must be able to reduce their current draw to
less than 0.5uAmps when commanded to do so by the PC.

(B)Parallel Connectors
o

Centronix or Standard Parallel -

This

connector has been around in PCs since they first appeared. It

has 37-pins and is now integrated on new motherboards. It is
usually used to connect your printer to the PC and moves data at
about 1MB/s.

SCSI - Small Computer System Interface moves data at a

maximum of up to 80Mb/s. It not integrated into most PC

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motherboards. It can be added to a PC as an Expansion card (see

below). Some printers and hard disk drives use SCSI interfaces.

Expansion Card Connectors -

The CPU connects to

expansion card connectors through one of the chip set ICs

mentioned above. They are located on the motherboard near the
rear of the PC. These connectors allow special function cards to
plug into and work with the PC.

Before motherboards integrated the serial and centronix

connectors they were found on expansion boards that plugged
into ISA slots.

Most PCs have the following expansion connector types:

ISA -

Industry Standard Architecture connectors have

been around since 1980 and first appeared in the IBM XT PC. This
type of slot still appears on some newer motherboards so that
older expansion boards can still be used. However, many
motherboards no longer have ISA connectors on them.

PCI -

Peripheral Component Interconnect is a newer and

faster interface that accepts all expansion cards that have a PCI
interface.

AGP -

Accelerated Graphics Port is a connector that is

designed to work with video cards. Your video display plugs into
and is controlled by one of these video cards. Many modern video
cards offer enhanced 3D-graphics and fast, full motion video.

1.

Power Supply :

A power supply is installed

in the back corner of the PC case, next to the

motherboard.

It converts 120 / 240 vac (standard

house power) into DC voltages that are used by other

components in the PC. A 20 conductor cable carries
+5vdc, -5vdc +12vdc, -12vdc and ground to the
motherboard.

1.

MOUSE :

A mouse is an acronym for Manually

Oscillating Utensil Sonically Engaged. It is the

electronic finger of the computer. One type of mouse
has a round ball under the bottom of the mouse that
rolls and turns two wheels which control the direction

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of the pointer on the screen. Another type of mouse

uses an optical system to track the movement of the
mouse. Laptop computers use touch pads, buttons
and other devices to control the pointer. Hand helds
use a combination of devices to control the pointer,
including touch screens

It is used to point at items in the window environment. The

mouse arrow indicates your position on screen. It can change
its shape depending upon your position on screen or the program
you were using. In a word processor the mouse will appear
as a flashing cursor or insertion point. Moving and clicking
the mouse can move the cursor onscreen. The mouse has 2
buttons. The left button is used to send signals to programs. The
right mouse button gives the user various menus. By double
clicking the left mouse button, programs can be opened. A new
mouse, the Intellimouse, allows the user to scroll a screen in a
program using a center wheel.

5.MONITOR

The monitor is the computers screen or

display. Monitors come in sizes from 14 inch, 17 inch, to as large

as 36 inch monitor. The resolution of the monitor determines the
sharpness of the screen. The resolution can be adjusted to
control the screens display. The monitor shows information on
the screen when you type. This is called outputting information.

When the computer needs more information it will display a

message on the screen, usually through a dialog box..

Most desktop computers use a monitor with a cathode tube or

liquid crystal display. Most notebooks use a liquid crystal
display monitor. To get the full benefit of todays software with
full colour graphics and animation, computers need a color
monitor with a display or graphics cards

6. KEYBOARD :

The keyboard has keys similar to our

old typewriter but It also has some additional keys. The

keyboard is used to type information into the computer or input
information.

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There are many different keyboard layouts and sizes with the
most common for Latin based languages being the QWERTY
layout (named for the first 6 keys).

Function keys are found at the top of the keyboard. These

control programs and are labeled F1 to F12. F1 always provides
help in windows environment.

Cursor control keys are arrows that allow you to move

the cursor in four directions (up, down, right, left).

Numeric keys are found on the right side of the keyboard

and act much like a calculator pad, however, key must be
pressed on in order for these keys to function.

ESC or the escape key allows you to exit or escape some

programs.

/ Front slash key is used in web addresses on the

Internet.

\ Back slash key signals a sub-directory.

Page up and page down keys allow you to move

up or down in a document.

Shift key and caps lock key change the case of the
letter when pressed.

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ALT key moves the cursor to the menu bar, which is useful in
the event the mouse is not functioning.

Pause key pauses text on screen in DOS.

ALT + Ctrl + Delete keys reboots or restarts the computer
when they are pushed in that sequence. This is called a warm
boot. A cold boot simply means turning the computer off for a
minute and then turning it back on. These boots are necessary if
a program fails to function.

Backspace key erases errors when the mouse is placed

after the error.

Delete key erases errors when the mouse is placed before

the error.

7.Printers - The printer takes the information on your

screen and transfers it to paper or a hard copy. There are many
different types of printers with various levels of quality. The three
basic types of printer are; dot matrix, inkjet, and laser.

Dot matrix printers work like a typewriter transferring ink

from a ribbon to paper with a series or matrix of tiny pins.

Ink jet printers work like dot matrix printers but fires a

stream of ink from a cartridge directly onto the paper.

Laser printers use the same technology as a photocopier

using heat to transfer toner onto paper.

8.Scanners-

Scanners allow you to transfer pictures and

photographs to your computer. A scanner scans the image from

the top to the bottom, one line at a time and transfers it to the
computer as a series of bits or a bitmap.

You can then take that

image and use it in a paint program, send it out as a fax or print

it. With optional Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

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software you can convert printed documents such as newspaper

articles to text that can be used in your word processor. Most
scanners use TWAIN software that makes the scanner accessible
by other software applications.

A Raster Image Processor (RIP) is a component used in a

printing system which produces a raster image also known as a
bitmap. The bitmap is then sent to a printing device for output.
The input may be a page description in a high-level page
description language such as PostScript, Portable Document
Format, XPS or another bitmap of higher or lower resolution than
the output device. In the latter case, the RIP applies either
smoothing or interpolation algorithms to the input bitmap to
generate the output bitmap.

9.Digital cameras allow you to take digital photographs.

The images are stored on a memory chip or disk that can be
transferred to your computer. Some cameras can also capture
sound and video.

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October 17, 2013

Rajesh Goyal

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