Personal Computer Hardware

Personal computer hardware
A personal computer is made up of multiple physical components of computer hardware, upon which can be
installed an operating system and a multitude of software to perform the operator's desired functions.
Typical PC hardware
Hardware of Personal Computer.
1. Monitor
2. Motherboard
3. CPU
4. RAM Memory
5. Expansion card
6. Power Supply
7. CD-ROM Drive
8. Hard Disk
9. Keyboard
10. Mouse
Inside a custom computer.
Though a PC comes in many different form factors, a typical personal computer consists of a case or
chassis in a tower shape (desktop) and the following parts:
Motherboard
The motherboard is the "body"[citation needed] of the computer. Components directly attached to the
motherboard include:
 The central processing unit (CPU) performs most of the calculations which enable a computer to
function, and is sometimes referred to as the "brain" of the computer. It is usually cooled by a
heat sink and fan.
 The chipset mediates communication between the CPU and the other components of the system,
including main memory.
 RAM Stores all running processes (applications) and the current running OS. RAM Stands for
Random Access Memory
 The BIOS includes boot firmware and power management. The Basic Input Output System tasks
are handled by operating system drivers.
 Internal Buses connect the CPU to various internal components and to expansion cards for
graphics and sound.
Copyrights © Creative Innovation Solutions, Baneshwor, Kathmandu, Nepal.

o Current
 The northbridge memory controller, for RAM and PCI Express
 PCI Express, for graphics cards
 PCI, for other expansion cards
 SATA, for disk drives
o Obsolete
 ATA (superseded by SATA)
 AGP (superseded by PCI Express)
 VLB VESA Local Bus (superseded by AGP)
 ISA (expansion card slot format obsolete in PCs, but still used in industrial
computers)
 External Bus Controllers support ports for external peripherals. These ports may be controlled
directly by the southbridge I/O controller or based on expansion cards attached to the
motherboard through the PCI bus.
o USB
o FireWire
o eSATA
Power supply
Includes power cord, switch, and cooling fan. Supplies power at appropriate voltages to the motherboard
and internal disk drives. It also converts alternating current to direct current and provides different
voltages to different parts of the computer.
Video display controller
Produces the output for the visual display unit. This will either be built into the motherboard or attached
in its own separate slot (PCI, PCI-E, PCI-E 2.0, or AGP), in the form of a graphics card.
Removable media devices
 CD (compact disc) - the most common type of removable media, suitable for music and data.
o CD-ROM Drive - a device used for reading data from a CD.
o CD Writer - a device used for both reading and writing data to and from a CD.
 DVD (digital versatile disc) - a popular type of removable media that is the same dimensions as a
CD but stores up to 12 times as much information. It is the most common way of transferring
digital video, and is popular for data storage.
o DVD-ROM Drive - a device used for reading data from a DVD.
o DVD Writer - a device used for both reading and writing data to and from a DVD.
o DVD-RAM Drive - a device used for rapid writing and reading of data from a special type
of DVD.
 Blu-ray Disc - a high-density optical disc format for data and high-definition video. Can store 70
times as much information as a CD.
o BD-ROM Drive - a device used for reading data from a Blu-ray disc.
o BD Writer - a device used for both reading and writing data to and from a Blu-ray disc.
 HD DVD - a discontinued competitor to the Blu-ray format.
 Floppy disk - an outdated storage device consisting of a thin disk of a flexible magnetic storage
medium. Used today mainly for loading RAID drivers.
 Zip drive - an outdated medium-capacity removable disk storage system, first introduced by
Iomega in 1994.
 USB flash drive - a flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB interface, typically
small, lightweight, removable, and rewritable. Capacities vary, from hundreds of megabytes (in
the same ballpark as CDs) to tens of gigabytes (surpassing, at great expense, Blu-ray discs).
 Tape drive - a device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape, used for long term storage
and backups.
Internal storage
Hardware that keeps data inside the computer for later use and remains persistent even when the
computer has no power.
 Hard disk - for medium-term storage of data.

 Solid-state drive - a device similar to hard disk, but containing no moving parts and stores data in
a digital format.
 RAID array controller - a device to manage several internal or external hard disks and optionally
some peripherals in order to achieve performance or reliability improvement in what is called a
RAID array.
Sound card
Enables the computer to output sound to audio devices, as well as accept input from a microphone. Most
modern computers have sound cards built-in to the motherboard, though it is common for a user to
install a separate sound card as an upgrade. Most sound cards, either built-in or added, have surround
sound capabilities.
Networking
Connects the computer to the Internet and/or other computers.
 Modem - for dial-up connections or sending digital faxes. (outdated)

 Network card - for DSL/Cable internet, and/or connecting to other computers, using IEEE 802.3
standards.
 Direct Cable Connection - Use of a null modem, connecting two computers together using their
serial ports or a Laplink Cable, connecting two computers together with their parallel ports.
Other peripherals
In addition, hardware devices can include external components of a computer system. The following are
either standard or very common.
Wheel Mouse

Includes various input and output devices, usually external to the computer system.
Input
 Text input devices

o Keyboard - a device to input text and characters by depressing buttons (referred to as
keys), similar to a typewriter. The most common English-language key layout is the
QWERTY layout.
 Pointing devices
o Mouse - a pointing device that detects two dimensional motion relative to its supporting
surface.
o Optical Mouse - a newer technology that uses lasers, or more commonly LEDs to track the
surface under the mouse to determine motion of the mouse, to be translated into mouse
movements on the screen.
o Trackball - a pointing device consisting of an exposed protruding ball housed in a socket
that detects rotation about two axes.
 Gaming devices
o Joystick - a general control device that consists of a handheld stick that pivots around one
end, to detect angles in two or three dimensions.
o Gamepad - a general handheld game controller that relies on the digits (especially thumbs)
to provide input.
o Game controller - a specific type of controller specialized for certain gaming purposes.
 Image, Video input devices
o Image scanner - a device that provides input by analyzing images, printed text,
handwriting, or an object.
o Webcam - a low resolution video camera used to provide visual input that can be easily
transferred over the internet.
 Audio input devices
o Microphone - an acoustic sensor that provides input by converting sound into electrical
signals.
o Mic - converting an audio signal into electrical signal.
Output
 Image, Video output devices

o Printer
o Monitor
 Audio output devices
o Speakers
o Headset
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
A computer network is a collection of computers and devices connected to each other. The network
allows computers to communicate with each other and share resources and information. The Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA) designed "Advanced Research Projects Agency Network"

(ARPANET) for the United States Department of Defense. It was the first computer network in the world
in late 1960s and early 1970s.[1]
Network classification
The following list presents categories used for classifying networks.
Connection method
Computer networks can also be classified according to the hardware and software technology that is used
to interconnect the individual devices in the network, such as Optical fiber, Ethernet, Wireless LAN,
HomePNA, Power line communication or G.hn.
Ethernet uses physical wiring to connect devices. Frequently deployed devices include hubs, switches,
bridges and/or routers.
Wireless LAN technology is designed to connect devices without wiring. These devices use radio waves or
infrared signals as a transmission medium.
ITU-T G.hn technology uses existing home wiring (coaxial cable, phone lines and power lines) to create a
high-speed (up to 1 Gigabit/s) local area network.
Scale
Networks are often classified as Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), Metropolitan
Area Network (MAN), Personal Area Network (PAN), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Campus Area
Network (CAN), Storage Area Network (SAN), etc. depending on their scale, scope and purpose. Usage,
trust levels and access rights often differ between these types of network - for example, LANs tend to be
designed for internal use by an organization's internal systems and employees in individual physical
locations (such as a building), while WANs may connect physically separate parts of an organization to
each other and may include connections to third parties.
Functional relationship (network architecture)
Computer networks may be classified according to the functional relationships which exist among the
elements of the network, e.g., Active Networking, Client-server and Peer-to-peer (workgroup)
architecture.
Network topology
Computer networks may be classified according to the network topology upon which the network is
based, such as bus network, star network, ring network, mesh network, star-bus network, tree or
hierarchical topology network. Network topology signifies the way in which devices in the network see
their logical relations to one another. The use of the term "logical" here is significant. That is, network
topology is independent of the "physical" layout of the network. Even if networked computers are
physically placed in a linear arrangement, if they are connected via a hub, the network has a Star
topology, rather than a bus topology. In this regard the visual and operational characteristics of a
network are distinct; the logical network topology is not necessarily the same as the physical layout.
Networks may be classified based on the method of data used to convey the data, these include digital and
analog networks.
Types of networks
Below is a list of the most common types of computer networks in order of scale.
Personal area network
A personal area network (PAN) is a computer network used for communication among computer devices
close to one person. Some examples of devices that are used in a PAN are printers, fax machines,
telephones, PDAs and scanners. The reach of a PAN is typically about 20-30 feet (approximately 6-9
meters), but this is expected to increase with technology improvements.
Local area network
A local area network (LAN) is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or
small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport. Current wired LANs are most likely to be based
on Ethernet technology, although new standards like ITU-T G.hn also provide a way to create a wired
LAN using existing home wires (coaxial cables, phone lines and power lines)[2].
For example, a library may have a wired or wireless LAN for users to interconnect local devices (e.g.,
printers and servers) and to connect to the internet. On a wired LAN, PCs in the library are typically
connected by category 5 (Cat5) cable, running the IEEE 802.3 protocol through a system of
interconnected devices and eventually connect to the Internet. The cables to the servers are typically on
Cat 5e enhanced cable, which will support IEEE 802.3 at 1 Gbit/s. A wireless LAN may exist using a
different IEEE protocol, 802.11b, 802.11g or possibly 802.11n. The staff computers (bright green in the
figure) can get to the color printer, checkout records, and the academic network and the Internet. All
user computers can get to the Internet and the card catalog. Each workgroup can get to its local printer.
Note that the printers are not accessible from outside their workgroup.
Typical library network, in a branching tree topology and controlled access to resources
All interconnected devices must understand the network layer (layer 3), because they are handling
multiple subnets (the different colors). Those inside the library, which have only 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet
connections to the user device and a Gigabit Ethernet connection to the central router, could be called
"layer 3 switches" because they only have Ethernet interfaces and must understand IP. It would be more
correct to call them access routers, where the router at the top is a distribution router that connects to the
Internet and academic networks' customer access routers.
The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to WANs (wide area networks), include their higher
data transfer rates, smaller geographic range, and lack of a need for leased telecommunication lines.
Current Ethernet or other IEEE 802.3 LAN technologies operate at speeds up to 10 Gbit/s. This is the
data transfer rate. IEEE has projects investigating the standardization of 40 and 100 Gbit/s.[3]
Campus area network

A campus area network (CAN) is a computer network made up of an interconnection of local
area networks (LANs) within a limited geographical area. It can be considered one form of a
metropolitan area network, specific to an academic setting.
In the case of a university campus-based campus area network, the network is likely to link a variety of
campus buildings including; academic departments, the university library and student residence halls. A
campus area network is larger than a local area network but smaller than a wide area network (WAN)
(in some cases).
The main aim of a campus area network is to facilitate students accessing internet and university
resources. This is a network that connects two or more LANs but that is limited to a specific and
contiguous geographical area such as a college campus, industrial complex, office building, or a military
base. A CAN may be considered a type of MAN (metropolitan area network), but is generally limited to a
smaller area than a typical MAN. This term is most often used to discuss the implementation of networks
for a contiguous area. This should not be confused with a Controller Area Network. A LAN connects
network devices over a relatively short distance. A networked office building, school, or home usually
contains a single LAN, though sometimes one building will contain a few small LANs (perhaps one per
room), and occasionally a LAN will span a group of nearby buildings. In TCP/IP networking, a LAN is
often but not always implemented as a single IP subnet.
Metropolitan area network
A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a network that connects two or more local area networks or
campus area networks together but does not extend beyond the boundaries of the immediate town/city.
Routers, switches and hubs are connected to create a metropolitan area network.
Wide area network
A wide area network (WAN) is a computer network that covers a broad area (i.e. any network whose
communications links cross metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries [1]). Less formally, a WAN is
a network that uses routers and public communications links [1]. Contrast with personal area networks
(PANs), local area networks (LANs), campus area networks (CANs), or metropolitan area networks
(MANs), which are usually limited to a room, building, campus or specific metropolitan area (e.g., a city)
respectively. The largest and most well-known example of a WAN is the Internet. A WAN is a data
communications network that covers a relatively broad geographic area (i.e. one city to another and one
country to another country) and that often uses transmission facilities provided by common carriers,
such as telephone companies. WAN technologies generally function at the lower three layers of the OSI
reference model: the physical layer, the data link layer, and the network layer.
Global area network
A global area networks (GAN) specification is in development by several groups, and there is no common
definition. In general, however, a GAN is a model for supporting mobile communications across an
arbitrary number of wireless LANs, satellite coverage areas, etc. The key challenge in mobile
communications is "handing off" the user communications from one local coverage area to the next. In
IEEE Project 802, this involves a succession of terrestrial WIRELESS local area networks (WLAN).[4]
Virtual private network

A virtual private network (VPN) is a computer network in which some of the links between nodes are
carried by open connections or virtual circuits in some larger network (e.g., the Internet) instead of by
physical wires. The link-layer protocols of the virtual network are said to be tunneled through the larger
network when this is the case. One common application is secure communications through the public
Internet, but a VPN need not have explicit security features, such as authentication or content
encryption. VPNs, for example, can be used to separate the traffic of different user communities over an
underlying network with strong security features.
A VPN may have best-effort performance, or may have a defined service level agreement (SLA) between
the VPN customer and the VPN service provider. Generally, a VPN has a topology more complex than
point-to-point.
A VPN allows computer users to appear to be editing from an IP address location other than the one
which connects the actual computer to the Internet.
Internetwork
Internetworking involves connecting two or more distinct computer networks or network segments via a
common routing technology. The result is called an internetwork (often shortened to internet). Two or
more networks or network segments connected using devices that operate at layer 3 (the 'network' layer)
of the OSI Basic Reference Model, such as a router. Any interconnection among or between public,
private, commercial, industrial, or governmental networks may also be defined as an internetwork.
In modern practice, the interconnected networks use the Internet Protocol. There are at least three
variants of internetwork, depending on who administers and who participates in them:
 Intranet
 Extranet
 Internet
Intranets and extranets may or may not have connections to the Internet. If connected to the Internet, the
intranet or extranet is normally protected from being accessed from the Internet without proper
authorization. The Internet is not considered to be a part of the intranet or extranet, although it may
serve as a portal for access to portions of an extranet.
Intranet
An intranet is a set of networks, using the Internet Protocol and IP-based tools such as web browsers and
file transfer applications, that is under the control of a single administrative entity. That administrative
entity closes the intranet to all but specific, authorized users. Most commonly, an intranet is the internal
network of an organization. A large intranet will typically have at least one web server to provide users
with organizational information.
Extranet
An extranet is a network or internetwork that is limited in scope to a single organization or entity but
which also has limited connections to the networks of one or more other usually, but not necessarily,
trusted organizations or entities (e.g., a company's customers may be given access to some part of its
intranet creating in this way an extranet, while at the same time the customers may not be considered
'trusted' from a security standpoint). Technically, an extranet may also be categorized as a CAN, MAN,

WAN, or other type of network, although, by definition, an extranet cannot consist of a single LAN; it
must have at least one connection with an external network.
Internet
The Internet is a specific internetwork. It consists of a worldwide interconnection of governmental,

academic, public, and private networks based upon the networking technologies of the Internet Protocol
Suite. It is the successor of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) developed by
DARPA of the U.S. Department of Defense. The Internet is also the communications backbone
underlying the World Wide Web (WWW). The 'Internet' is most commonly spelled with a capital 'I' as a
proper noun, for historical reasons and to distinguish it from other generic internetworks.
Participants in the Internet use a diverse array of methods of several hundred documented, and often
standardized, protocols compatible with the Internet Protocol Suite and an addressing system (IP
Addresses) administered by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and address registries. Service
providers and large enterprises exchange information about the reachability of their address spaces
through the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), forming a redundant worldwide mesh of transmission
paths.
Basic hardware components

All networks are made up of basic hardware building blocks to interconnect network nodes, such as
Network Interface Cards (NICs), Bridges, Hubs, Switches, and Routers. In addition, some method of
connecting these building blocks is required, usually in the form of galvanic cable (most commonly
Category 5 cable). Less common are microwave links (as in IEEE 802.12) or optical cable ("optical
fiber"). An ethernet card may also be required.
Network interface cards
A network card, network adapter or NIC (network interface card) is a piece of computer hardware
designed to allow computers to communicate over a computer network. It provides physical access to a
networking medium and often provides a low-level addressing system through the use of MAC addresses.
Repeaters
A repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it at a higher power level, or to
the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances without degradation. In
most twisted pair Ethernet configurations, repeaters are required for cable which runs longer than 100
meters.
Hubs
A hub contains multiple ports. When a packet arrives at one port, it is copied unmodified to all ports of
the hub for transmission. The destination address in the frame is not changed to a broadcast address. [5]
Bridges

A network bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model.
Bridges do not promiscuously copy traffic to all ports, as hubs do, but learn which MAC addresses are
reachable through specific ports. Once the bridge associates a port and an address, it will send traffic for
that address only to that port. Bridges do send broadcasts to all ports except the one on which the
broadcast was received.
Bridges learn the association of ports and addresses by examining the source address of frames that it
sees on various ports. Once a frame arrives through a port, its source address is stored and the bridge
assumes that MAC address is associated with that port. The first time that a previously unknown
destination address is seen, the bridge will forward the frame to all ports other than the one on which the
frame arrived.
Bridges come in three basic types:
1. Local bridges: Directly connect local area networks (LANs)

2. Remote bridges: Can be used to create a wide area network (WAN) link between LANs. Remote
bridges, where the connecting link is slower than the end networks, largely have been replaced by
routers.
3. Wireless bridges: Can be used to join LANs or connect remote stations to LANs.
Switches
A switch is a device that forwards and filters OSI layer 2 datagrams (chunk of data communication)
between ports (connected cables) based on the MAC addresses in the packets.[6] This is distinct from a
hub in that it only forwards the packets to the ports involved in the communications rather than all ports
connected. Strictly speaking, a switch is not capable of routing traffic based on IP address (OSI Layer 3)
which is necessary for communicating between network segments or within a large or complex LAN.
Some switches are capable of routing based on IP addresses but are still called switches as a marketing
term. A switch normally has numerous ports, with the intention being that most or all of the network is
connected directly to the switch, or another switch that is in turn connected to a switch.[7]
Switch is a marketing term that encompasses routers and bridges, as well as devices that may distribute
traffic on load or by application content (e.g., a Web URL identifier). Switches may operate at one or
more OSI model layers, including physical, data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end). A device
that operates simultaneously at more than one of these layers is called a multilayer switch.
Overemphasizing the ill-defined term "switch" often leads to confusion when first trying to understand
networking. Many experienced network designers and operators recommend starting with the logic of
devices dealing with only one protocol level, not all of which are covered by OSI. Multilayer device
selection is an advanced topic that may lead to selecting particular implementations, but multilayer
switching is simply not a real-world design concept.
Routers

Routers are networking devices that forward data packets between networks using headers and
forwarding tables to determine the best path to forward the packets. Routers work at the network layer.
Router
Cisco 1800 Router
Nortel ERS 8600
Cisco 7600 Routers
A router (pronounced /ˈraʊtər/ in the USA and Australia, /ˈruːtər/ in Canada, the UK, and Ireland, these
last two making a pronounced distinction with the tool used to rout wood) is a networking device whose
software and hardware are usually tailored to the tasks of routing and forwarding information. For
example, on the Internet, information is directed to various paths by routers.
Routers connect two or more logical subnets, which do not necessarily map one-to-one to the physical
interfaces of the router.[1] The term "layer 3 switch" often is used interchangeably with router, but switch
is a general term without a rigorous technical definition. In marketing usage, it is generally optimized for
Ethernet LAN interfaces and may not have other physical interface types. In comparison, a network hub
does not do any routing, instead every packet it receives on one network line gets forwarded to all the
other network lines.

Routers operate in two different planes [2]:
 Control plane, in which the router learns the outgoing interface that is most appropriate for
forwarding specific packets to specific destinations,
 Forwarding plane, which is responsible for the actual process of sending a packet received on a
logical interface to an outbound logical interface.
Control plane
Routers are like intersections whereas switches are like streets.
Control plane processing leads to the construction of what is variously called a routing table or routing
information base (RIB). The RIB may be used by the Forwarding Plane to look up the outbound
interface for a given packet, or, depending on the router implementation, the Control Plane may populate
a separate forwarding information base (FIB) with destination information. RIBs are optimized for
efficient updating with control mechanisms such as routing protocols, while FIBs are optimized for the
fastest possible lookup of the information needed to select the outbound interface.
The Control Plane constructs the routing table from knowledge of the up/down status of its local
interfaces, from hard-coded static routes, and from exchanging routing protocol information with other
routers. It is not compulsory for a router to use routing protocols to function, if for example it was
configured solely with static routes. The routing table stores the best routes to certain network
destinations, the "routing metrics" [ex:time delay,distance,queue length] associated with those routes,
and the path to the next hop router.
Routers do maintain state on the routes in the RIB/routing table, but this is quite distinct from not
maintaining state on individual packets that have been forwarded.
Forwarding plane (a.k.a. data plane)

For the pure Internet Protocol (IP) forwarding function, router design tries to minimize the state
information kept on individual packets. Once a packet is forwarded, the router should no longer retain
statistical information about it. It is the sending and receiving endpoints that keeps information about
such things as errored or missing packets.
Forwarding decisions can involve decisions at layers other than the IP internetwork layer or OSI layer 3.
Again, the marketing term switch can be applied to devices that have these capabilities. A function that
forwards based on data link layer, or OSI layer 2, information, is properly called a bridge. Marketing
literature may call it a layer 2 switch, but a switch has no precise definition.
Among the most important forwarding decisions is deciding what to do when congestion occurs, i.e.,
packets arrive at the router at a rate higher than the router can process. Three policies commonly used in
the Internet are Tail drop, Random early detection, and Weighted random early detection. Tail drop is
the simplest and most easily implemented; the router simply drops packets once the length of the queue
exceeds the size of the buffers in the router. Random early detection (RED) probabilistically drops
datagrams early when the queue exceeds a configured size. Weighted random early detection requires a
weighted average queue size to exceed the configured size, so that short bursts will not trigger random
drops.

Types of routers
Routers may provide connectivity inside enterprises, between enterprises and the Internet, and inside
Internet Service Providers (ISP). The largest routers (for example the Cisco CRS-1 or Juniper T1600)
interconnect ISPs, are used inside ISPs, or may be used in very large enterprise networks. The smallest
routers provide connectivity for small and home offices.
Routers for Internet connectivity and internal use
Routers intended for ISP and major enterprise connectivity will almost invariably exchange routing
information with the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). RFC 4098[3] defines several types of BGP-speaking
routers:
 Edge Router: Placed at the edge of an ISP network, it speaks external BGP (eBGP) to a BGP
speaker in another provider or large enterprise Autonomous System (AS).
 Subscriber Edge Router: Located at the edge of the subscriber's network, it speaks eBGP to its
provider's AS(s). It belongs to an end user (enterprise) organization.
 Inter-provider Border Router: Interconnecting ISPs, this is a BGP speaking router that maintains
BGP sessions with other BGP speaking routers in other providers' ASes.
 Core router: A router that resides within the middle or backbone of the LAN network rather than
at its periphery.
Within an ISP: Internal to the provider's AS, such a router speaks internal BGP (iBGP) to that
provider's edge routers, other intra-provider core routers, or the provider's inter-provider border
routers.
"Internet backbone:" The Internet does not have a clearly identifiable backbone, as did its
predecessors. See default-free zone (DFZ). Nevertheless, it is the major ISPs' routers that make up
what many would consider the core. These ISPs operate all four types of the BGP-speaking
routers described here. In ISP usage, a "core" router is internal to an ISP, and used to
interconnect its edge and border routers. Core routers may also have specialized functions in
virtual private networks based on a combination of BGP and Multi-Protocol Label Switching
(MPLS)[4].
Routers are also used for port forwarding for private servers.
Small Office Home Office (SOHO) connectivity
Residential gateways (often called routers) are frequently used in homes to connect to a broadband
service, such as IP over cable or DSL. A home router may allow connectivity to an enterprise via a secure
Virtual Private Network.
While functionally similar to routers, residential gateways use port address translation in addition to
routing. Instead of connecting local computers to the remote network directly, a residential gateway
makes multiple local computers appear to be a single computer.
Enterprise routers

All sizes of routers may be found inside enterprises. The most powerful routers tend to be found in ISPs
and academic & research facilities. Large businesses may also need powerful routers.
A three-layer model is in common use, not all of which need be present in smaller networks [5].
Access
Access routers, including SOHO, are located at customer sites such as branch offices that do not need
hierarchical routing of their own. Typically, they are optimized for low cost.
Distribution
Distribution routers aggregate traffic from multiple access routers, either at the same site, or to collect
the data streams from multiple sites to a major enterprise location. Distribution routers often are
responsible for enforcing quality of service across a WAN, so they may have considerable memory,
multiple WAN interfaces, and substantial processing intelligence.
They may also provide connectivity to groups of servers or to external networks. In the latter application,
the router's functionality must be carefully considered as part of the overall security architecture.
Separate from the router may be a Firewalled or VPN concentrator, or the router may include these and
other security functions.
When an enterprise is primarily on one campus, there may not be a distinct distribution tier, other than
perhaps off-campus access. In such cases, the access routers, connected to LANs, interconnect via core
routers.
Core
In enterprises, a core router may provide a "collapsed backbone" interconnecting the distribution tier
routers from multiple buildings of a campus, or large enterprise locations. They tend to be optimized for
high bandwidth.
When an enterprise is widely distributed with no central location(s), the function of core routing may be
subsumed by the WAN service to which the enterprise subscribes, and the distribution routers become
the highest tier.
History
Leonard Kleinrock and the first IMP.
A Cisco ASM/2-32EM router deployed at CERN in 1987.
The very first device that had fundamentally the same functionality as a router does today, i.e a packet
switch, was the Interface Message Processor (IMP); IMPs were the devices that made up the ARPANET,
the first packet switching network. The idea for a router (although they were called "gateways" at the
time) initially came about through an international group of computer networking researchers called the
International Network Working Group (INWG). Set up in 1972 as an informal group to consider the
technical issues involved in connecting different networks, later that year it became a subcommittee of
the International Federation for Information Processing. [6]
These devices were different from most previous packet switches in two ways. First, they connected
dissimilar kinds of networks, such as serial lines and local area networks. Second, they were
connectionless devices, which had no role in assuring that traffic was delivered reliably, leaving that
entirely to the hosts (although this particular idea had been previously pioneered in the CYCLADES
network).
The idea was explored in more detail, with the intention to produce a real prototype system, as part of
two contemporaneous programs. One was the initial DARPA-initiated program, which created the
TCP/IP architecture of today. [7] The other was a program at Xerox PARC to explore new networking
technologies, which produced the PARC Universal Packet system, although due to corporate intellectual
property concerns it received little attention outside Xerox until years later. [8]
The earliest Xerox routers came into operation sometime after early 1974. The first true IP router was
developed by Virginia Strazisar at BBN, as part of that DARPA-initiated effort, during 1975-1976. By the
end of 1976, three PDP-11-based routers were in service in the experimental prototype Internet. [9]
The first multiprotocol routers were independently created by staff researchers at MIT and Stanford in
1981; the Stanford router was done by William Yeager, and the MIT one by Noel Chiappa; both were
also based on PDP-11s. [10] [11] [12] [13]
As virtually all networking now uses IP at the network layer, multiprotocol routers are largely obsolete,
although they were important in the early stages of the growth of computer networking, when several
protocols other than TCP/IP were in widespread use. Routers that handle both IPv4 and IPv6 arguably
are multiprotocol, but in a far less variable sense than a router that processed AppleTalk, DECnet, IP,
and Xerox protocols.
In the original era of routing (from the mid-1970s through the 1980s), general-purpose mini-computers
served as routers. Although general-purpose computers can perform routing, modern high-speed routers
are highly specialized computers, generally with extra hardware added to accelerate both common
routing functions such as packet forwarding and specialised functions such as IPsec encryption.
Still, there is substantial use of Linux and Unix machines, running open source routing code, for routing
research and selected other applications. While Cisco's operating system was independently designed,
other major router operating systems, such as those from Juniper Networks and Extreme Networks, are
extensively modified but still have Unix ancestry.
Video Graphics Array

DE15F VGA port (on the video generator)
DE15M VGA connector (on the Display device)
The term Video Graphics Array (VGA) refers specifically to the display hardware first introduced with
the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987,[1] but through its widespread adoption has also come to mean
either an analog computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector or the 640×480
resolution itself. While this resolution has been superseded in the personal computer market, it is
becoming a popular resolution on mobile devices.[citation needed]
Video Graphics Array (VGA) was the last graphical standard introduced by IBM that the majority of PC
clone manufacturers conformed to, making it today (as of 2009) the lowest common denominator that all
PC graphics hardware supports, before a device-specific driver is loaded into the computer. For example,
the MS-Windows splash screen appears while the machine is still operating in VGA mode, which is the
reason that this screen always appears in reduced resolution and color depth.

VGA was officially superseded by IBM's XGA standard, but in reality it was superseded by numerous
slightly different extensions to VGA made by clone manufacturers that came to be known collectively as
"Super VGA".
Technical details
Hardware
VGA compared to other standard resolutions.
VGA is referred to as an "array" instead of an "adapter" because it was implemented from the start as a
single chip (an ASIC), replacing the Motorola 6845 and dozens of discrete logic chips that covered the
full-length ISA boards of the MDA, CGA, and EGA. Its single-chip implementation also allowed the
VGA to be placed directly on a PC's motherboard with a minimum of difficulty (it only required video
memory, timing crystals and an external RAMDAC), and the first IBM PS/2 models were equipped with
VGA on the motherboard. (Contrast this with all of the "family one" IBM PC desktop models—the PC
[machine-type 5150], PC/XT [5160], and PC AT [5170]—which required a display adapter installed in a
slot in order to connect a monitor.)
The VGA specifications are as follows:
 256 KB Video RAM (The very first cards could be ordered with 64KB or 128KB of RAM at the
cost of losing some video modes).
 16-color and 256-color modes
 262,144-value color palette (six bits each for red, green, and blue)
 Selectable 25.175 MHz [2] or 28.322 MHz master clock
 Maximum of 800 horizontal pixels[3]
 Maximum of 600 lines[3]
 Refresh rates at up to 70 Hz [4]
 Vertical blank interrupt (Not all clone cards support this.)
 Planar mode: up to 16 colors (4 bit planes)
 Packed-pixel mode: 256 colors (Mode 13h)
 Hardware smooth scrolling support
 Some "Raster [disambiguation needed] Ops" support
 Barrel shifter
 Split screen support
 0.7 V peak-to-peak [5]
 75 ohm double-terminated impedance (18.7mA - 13mW)

The VGA supports both All Points Addressable graphics modes, and alphanumeric text modes. Standard
graphics modes are:
 640×480 in 16 colors
 640×350 in 16 colors
 320×200 in 16 colors
 320×200 in 256 colors (Mode 13h)
As well as the standard modes, VGA can be configured to emulate many of the modes of its predecessors
(EGA, CGA, and MDA).
Signal
For most common VGA mode 640x480 "60 Hz" non-interlaced the horizontal timings are:[6][7]
Parameter Value Unit
Clock frequency 25.175 MHz[8]
Horizontal pixels 640
Horizontal sync polarity Negative
Total time for each line 31.77 µs
Front porch (A) 0.94 µs
Sync pulse length (B) 3.77 µs
Back porch (C) 1.89 µs
Active video (D) 25.17 µs
(Total horizontal sync time 6.60 µs)

The vertical timings are:
Parameter Value Unit
Vertical lines 480
Vertical sync polarity Negative
Vertical frequency 59.94 Hz
Front porch (E) 0.35 ms
Sync pulse length (F) 0.06 ms
Back porch (G) 1.02 ms
Active video (H) 15.25 ms
(Total vertical sync time 1.43 ms)
640 x 400 @ 70 Hz is video mode used for booting most x86 personal computers.[6]
640 x 480 @ 60 Hz is the default MS-Windows graphics mode with 16 colours.[6]
It should be noted that the actual timings vary slightly. For example for 640x480 @ 60fps an 25,17 µs
active video time with an pixel frequency of 25,174 MHz gives 633 pixels rather than the expected 640
pixels.

Standard text modes
Standard alphanumeric text modes for the VGA use 80×25 or 40×25 text cells. Each cell may choose from
one of 16 available colors for its foreground and 8 colors for the background; the 8 background colors
allowed are the ones without the high-intensity bit set. Each character may also be made to blink; all that
are set to blink will blink in unison. The blinking option for the entire screen can be exchanged for the
ability to choose the background color for each cell from among all 16 colors. All of these options are the
same as those on the CGA adapter as introduced by IBM.
Like EGA, VGA supports 512 simultaneous characters on screen by disabling one color bit. The glyphs
on 80×25 mode are normally made of 9×16 pixels. Users may define their own character set by loading a
custom font onto the card. As character data is 8-bit wide, some characters are normally made 9 bit wide
by repeating the last vertical line, especially those defining horizontal IBM box drawing characters.[9]
VGA adapters usually support both a monochrome and a color text mode, though the monochrome mode
is almost never used. Black and white text on nearly all modern VGA adapters is drawn by using gray
colored text on a black background in color mode. VGA monochrome monitors were sold (intended
primarily for text applications), but most of them will work at least adequately with a VGA adapter in
color mode. Occasionally a faulty connection between a modern monitor and video card will cause the
VGA part of the card to detect the monitor as monochrome, and this will cause the BIOS and initial boot
sequence to appear in greyscale. Usually once the video card's drivers are loaded (for example by
continuing to boot into the operating system) they will override this detection and the monitor will return
to color.
In color text mode, each screen character is actually represented by two bytes. The lower, or character
byte is the actual character for the current character set, and the higher, or attribute byte is a bit field
used to select various video attributes such as color, blinking, character set, and so forth. This byte-pair
scheme is among the features that VGA inherited ultimately from CGA.
The VGA color palette

See also: List of monochrome and RGB palettes, 18-bit RGB, List of 16-bit computer hardware
palettes, and MCGA and VGA
VGA 256 color palette

The VGA color system is backwards compatible with the EGA and CGA adapters, and adds another
level of configuration on top of that. CGA was able to display up to 16 colors, and EGA extended this by
allowing each of the 16 colors to be chosen from a 64-color palette (these 64 colors are made up of two
bits each for red, green and blue: two bits × three channels = six bits = 64 different values). VGA further
extends this scheme by increasing the EGA palette from 64 entries to 256 entries. Two more blocks of 64
colors with progressively darker shades were added, along with 8 "blank" entries that were set to black.
[10]
In addition to the extended palette, each of the 256 entries could be assigned an arbitrary color value
through the VGA DAC. The EGA BIOS only allowed 2 bits per channel to represent each entry, while
VGA allowed 6 bits to represent the intensity of each of the three primaries (red, blue and green). This
provided a total of 64 different intensity levels for red, green and blue, resulting in 262,144 possible
colors, any 256 of which could be assigned to the palette (and in turn out of those 256, any 16 of them
could be displayed in CGA video modes).
This method allowed new VGA colors to be used in EGA and CGA graphics modes, providing one
remembered how the different palette systems are laid together. To set the text color to very dark red in
text mode, for instance, it will need to be set to one of the CGA colors (for example, the default color, #7:
light grey.) This color then maps to one in the EGA palette — in the case of CGA color 7, it maps to EGA
palette entry 42. The VGA DAC must then be configured to change color 42 to dark red, and then
immediately anything displayed on the screen in light-grey (CGA color 7) will become dark red. This
feature was often used in 256-color VGA DOS games when they first loaded, by smoothly fading out the
text screen to black. (The game Descent, from 1995, is an example.)
While CGA and EGA-compatible modes only allowed 16 colors to be displayed at any one time, other
VGA modes, such as the widely used mode 13h, allowed all 256 palette entries to be displayed on the
screen at the same time, and so in these modes any 256 colors could be shown out of the 262,144 colors
available.
Addressing details
Examples of VGA images in 640x480x16 (top) and 320x200x256 modes (bottom). Dithering is used to
overcome color limitations.

The video memory of the VGA is mapped to the PC's memory via a window in the range between
segments 0xA0000 and 0xBFFFF in the PC's real mode address space (A000:0000 and B000:FFFF in
segment:offset notation). Typically these starting segments are:
 0xA0000 for EGA/VGA graphics modes (64 KB)

 0xB0000 for monochrome text mode (32 KB)
 0xB8000 for color text mode and CGA-compatible graphics modes (32 KB)
Due to the use of different address mappings for different modes, it is possible to have a Monochrome
Display Adapter and a color adapter such as the VGA, EGA, or CGA installed in the same machine. At
the beginning of the 1980s, this was typically used to display Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets in high-resolution
text on a MDA display and associated graphics on a low-resolution CGA display simultaneously. Many
programmers also used such a setup with the monochrome card displaying debugging information while
a program ran in graphics mode on the other card. Several debuggers, like Borland's Turbo Debugger,
D86 (by Alan J. Cox) and Microsoft's CodeView could work in a dual monitor setup. Either Turbo
Debugger or CodeView could be used to debug Windows. There were also DOS device drivers such as
ox.sys, which implemented a serial interface simulation on the MDA display and, for example, allowed
the user to receive crash messages from debugging versions of Windows without using an actual serial
terminal. It is also possible to use the "MODE MONO" command at the DOS prompt to redirect the
output to the monochrome display. When a Monochrome Display Adapter was not present it was
possible to use the 0xB000 - 0xB7FF address space as additional memory for other programs (for
example by adding the line "DEVICE=EMM386.EXE I=B000-B7FF" into config.sys, this memory
would be made available to programs that can be "loaded high" - loaded into high memory.)
Programming tricks
An undocumented but popular technique nicknamed Mode X (first coined by Michael Abrash) or
"tweaked VGA" was used to make programming techniques and graphics resolutions available that were
not otherwise possible in the standard Mode 13h. This was done by "unchaining" the 256 KB VGA
memory into four separate "planes", which would make all of VGA's 256 KB of RAM available in 256-
color modes. There was a trade-off for extra complexity and performance loss in some types of graphics
operations, but this was mitigated by other operations becoming faster in certain situations:
 Single-color polygon filling could be accelerated due to the ability to set four pixels with a single
write to the hardware.
 The video adapter could assist in copying video RAM regions, which was sometimes faster than
doing this with the relatively slow CPU-to-VGA interface.
 Several higher-resolution display modes were possible: at 16 colors, 704×528, 736×552, 768×576,
and even 800×600 were possible. Software such as Xlib (a VGA graphics library for C in the early
1990s) and ColoRIX (a 256-color graphics program), also supported tweaked 256-color modes
using many combinations of columns of 256, 320, and 360 pixels, and rows of 200, 240, 256, 400,
and 480 lines (the upper limit being 640×400 which used 250 KB of VGA's 256 KB video ram).
However, 320×240 was the best known and most-frequently used since it was a typical 4:3 aspect
ratio resolution with square pixels.
 The use of multiple video pages in hardware allowed the programmer to perform double buffering
or triple buffering, which, while available in VGA's 320×200 16-color mode, was not possible using
stock Mode 13h.
Sometimes the monitor refresh rate had to be reduced to accommodate these modes, increasing eye
strain. They were also incompatible with some older monitors, producing display problems such as

picture detail disappearing into overscan, flickering, vertical roll, and lack of horizontal sync depending
on the mode being attempted. Because of this, most VGA tweaks used in commercial products were
limited to "monitor-safe" combinations, such as 320×240 (square pixels, three video pages), 320×400
(double resolution, two video pages), and 360×480 (highest resolution compatible with standard VGA
monitors, one video page). Currently, the highest known tweaked VGA resolution is 400×600×256
(400×600 pixel × 256 colors). It is used in Fractint - a famous fractal generator.
Motherboard
Motherboard
The ASUS A8N VM CSM
Connects to Microprocessors via one of:
 sockets
 Slots (on older motherboards)
Main memory via one of:
 Slots
 Sockets for individual chips
(on old motherboards)
Peripherals via one of:
 External ports
 Internal cables
Expansion cards via one of:
 PCI bus
 AGP bus
 PCI Express bus

 ISA bus (on older
motherboards)
 Others
Form factors ATX

microATX
AT (on older motherboards)
Baby AT (on older motherboards)
Others
Common ASUS
manufacturers Foxconn
Intel
XFX
Others
A motherboard is the central printed circuit board (PCB) in some complex electronic systems, such as modern
personal computers. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or,
on Apple computers, the logic board.[1] It is also sometimes casually shortened to mobo.[2]
History
Prior to the advent of the microprocessor, a computer was usually built in a card-cage case or mainframe with
components connected by a backplane consisting of a set of slots themselves connected with wires; in very old
designs the wires were discrete connections between card connector pins, but printed-circuit boards soon
became the standard practice. The central processing unit, memory and peripherals were housed on individual
printed circuit boards which plugged into the backplane.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, it became economical to move an increasing number of peripheral functions
onto the motherboard (see below). In the late 1980s, motherboards began to include single ICs (called Super I/O
chips) capable of supporting a set of low-speed peripherals: keyboard, mouse, floppy disk drive, serial ports,
and parallel ports. As of the late 1990s, many personal computer motherboards supported a full range of audio,
video, storage, and networking functions without the need for any expansion cards at all; higher-end systems for
3D gaming and computer graphics typically retained only the graphics card as a separate component.
The early pioneers of motherboard manufacturing were Micronics, Mylex, AMI, DTK, Hauppauge, Orchid
Technology, Elitegroup, DFI, and a number of Taiwan-based manufacturers.
Popular personal computers such as the Apple II and IBM PC had published schematic diagrams and other
documentation which permitted rapid reverse-engineering and third-party replacement motherboards. Usually
intended for building new computers compatible with the exemplars, many motherboards offered additional
performance or other features and were used to upgrade the manufacturer's original equipment.
The term mainboard is archaically applied to devices with a single board and no additional expansions or
capability. In modern terms this would include embedded systems, and controlling boards in televisions,

washing machines etc. A motherboard specifically refers to a printed circuit with the capability to add/extend its
performance/capabilities with the addition of "daughterboards".
Overview
An Acer E360 motherboard made by Foxconn, from 2005, with a large number of integrated peripherals. This
board's nForce3 chipset lacks a traditional northbridge.
Most computer motherboards produced today are designed for IBM-compatible computers, which currently
account for around 90% of global PC sales[citation needed]. A motherboard, like a backplane, provides the electrical
connections by which the other components of the system communicate, but unlike a backplane, it also hosts
the central processing unit, and other subsystems and devices.
Motherboards are also used in many other electronics devices such as mobile phones, stop-watches, clocks, and
other small electronic devices.
A typical desktop computer has its microprocessor, main memory, and other essential components on the
motherboard. Other components such as external storage, controllers for video display and sound, and
peripheral devices may be attached to the motherboard as plug-in cards or via cables, although in modern
computers it is increasingly common to integrate some of these peripherals into the motherboard itself.
An important component of a motherboard is the microprocessor's supporting chipset, which provides the
supporting interfaces between the CPU and the various buses and external components. This chipset determines,
to an extent, the features and capabilities of the motherboard.
Modern motherboards include, at a minimum:
 sockets (or slots) in which one or more microprocessors are installed[3]

 slots into which the system's main memory is installed (typically in the form of DIMM modules
containing DRAM chips)
 a chipset which forms an interface between the CPU's front-side bus, main memory, and peripheral
buses
 non-volatile memory chips (usually Flash ROM in modern motherboards) containing the system's
firmware or BIOS
 a clock generator which produces the system clock signal to synchronize the various components
 slots for expansion cards (these interface to the system via the buses supported by the chipset)
 power connectors flickers, which receive electrical power from the computer power supply and
distribute it to the CPU, chipset, main memory, and expansion cards.[4]
The Octek Jaguar V motherboard from 1993.[5] This board has 6 ISA slots but few onboard peripherals, as
evidenced by the lack of external connectors.
Additionally, nearly all motherboards include logic and connectors to support commonly-used input devices,
such as PS/2 connectors for a mouse and keyboard. Early personal computers such as the Apple II or IBM PC
included only this minimal peripheral support on the motherboard. Occasionally video interface hardware was
also integrated into the motherboard; for example on the Apple II, and rarely on IBM-compatible computers
such as the IBM PC Jr. Additional peripherals such as disk controllers and serial ports were provided as
expansion cards.
Given the high thermal design power of high-speed computer CPUs and components, modern motherboards
nearly always include heatsinks and mounting points for fans to dissipate excess heat.
CPU sockets
Integrated peripherals
Block diagram of a modern motherboard, which supports many on-board peripheral

functions as well as several expansion slots.
With the steadily declining costs and size of integrated circuits, it is now possible to include support for many
peripherals on the motherboard. By combining many functions on one PCB, the physical size and total cost of
the system may be reduced; highly-integrated motherboards are thus especially popular in small form factor and
budget computers.
For example, the ECS RS485M-M,[6] a typical modern budget motherboard for computers based on AMD
processors, has on-board support for a very large range of peripherals:
 disk controllers for a floppy disk drive, up to 2 PATA drives, and up to 6 SATA drives (including RAID
0/1 support)
 integrated ATI Radeon graphics controller supporting 2D and 3D graphics, with VGA and TV output
 integrated sound card supporting 8-channel (7.1) audio and S/PDIF output
 Fast Ethernet network controller for 10/100 Mbit networking
 USB 2.0 controller supporting up to 12 USB ports
 IrDA controller for infrared data communication (e.g. with an IrDA enabled Cellular Phone or Printer)
 temperature, voltage, and fan-speed sensors that allow software to monitor the health of computer
components
Expansion cards to support all of these functions would have cost hundreds of dollars even a decade ago,
however as of April 2007 such highly-integrated motherboards are available for as little as $30 in the USA.
Peripheral card slots
A typical motherboard of 2009 will have a different number of connections depending on its standard. A
standard ATX motherboard will typically have 1x PCI-E 16x connection for a graphics card, 2x PCI slots for
various expansion cards and 1x PCI-E 1x which will eventually supersede PCI.
A standard Super ATX motherboard will have 1x PCI-E 16x connection for a graphics card. It will also have a
varying number of PCI and PCI-E 1x slots. It can sometimes also have a PCI-E 4x slot. This varies between
brands and models.

Some motherboards have 2x PCI-E 16x slots, to allow more than 2 monitors without special hardware or to
allow use of a special graphics technology called SLI (for Nvidia) and Crossfire (for ATI). These allow 2
graphics cards to be linked together, to allow better performance in intensive graphical computing tasks, such as
gaming and video-editing.
As of 2007, virtually all motherboards come with at least 4x USB ports on the rear, with at least 2 connections
on the board internally for wiring additional front ports that are built into the computer's case. Ethernet is also
included now. This is a standard networking cable for connecting the computer to a network or a modem. A
sound chip is always included on the motherboard, to allow sound to be output without the need for any extra
components. This allows computers to be far more multimedia-based than before. Cheaper machines now often
have their graphics chip built into the motherboard rather than a separate card.
Temperature and reliability
Motherboards are generally air cooled with heat sinks often mounted on larger chips, such as the northbridge, in
modern motherboards. If the motherboard is not cooled properly, then this can cause its computer to crash.
Passive cooling, or a single fan mounted on the power supply, was sufficient for many desktop computer CPUs
until the late 1990s; since then, most have required CPU fans mounted on their heatsinks, due to rising clock
speeds and power consumption. Most motherboards have connectors for additional case fans as well. Newer
motherboards have integrated temperature sensors to detect motherboard and CPU temperatures, and
controllable fan connectors which the BIOS or operating system can use to regulate fan speed. Some higher-
powered computers (which typically have high-performance processors and large amounts of RAM, as well as
high-performance video cards) use a water-cooling system instead of many fans.
Some small form factor computers and home theater PCs designed for quiet and energy-efficient operation
boast fan-less designs. This typically requires the use of a low-power CPU, as well as careful layout of the
motherboard and other components to allow for heat sink placement.
A 2003 study[7] found that some spurious computer crashes and general reliability issues, ranging from screen
image distortions to I/O read/write errors, can be attributed not to software or peripheral hardware but to aging
capacitors on PC motherboards. Ultimately this was shown to be the result of a faulty electrolyte formulation.[8]
For more information on premature capacitor failure on PC motherboards, see capacitor plague.
Motherboards use electrolytic capacitors to filter the DC power distributed around the board. These capacitors
age at a temperature-dependent rate, as their water based electrolytes slowly evaporate. This can lead to loss of
capacitance and subsequent motherboard malfunctions due to voltage instabilities. While most capacitors are
rated for 2000 hours of operation at 105 °C,[9] their expected design life roughly doubles for every 10 °C below
this. At 45 °C a lifetime of 15 years can be expected. This appears reasonable for a computer motherboard,
however many manufacturers have delivered substandard capacitors,[citation needed] which significantly reduce life
expectancy. Inadequate case cooling and elevated temperatures easily exacerbate this problem. It is possible,
but tedious and time-consuming, to find and replace failed capacitors on PC motherboards; it is less expensive
to buy a new motherboard than to pay for such a repair.[citation needed]
Form factor

microATX form factor motherboard
Motherboards are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes ("form factors"), some of which are specific to
individual computer manufacturers. However, the motherboards used in IBM-compatible commodity computers
have been standardized to fit various case sizes. As of 2007, most desktop computer motherboards use one of
these standard form factors—even those found in Macintosh and Sun computers which have not traditionally
been built from commodity components.
Laptop computers generally use highly integrated, miniaturized, and customized motherboards. This is one of
the reasons that laptop computers are difficult to upgrade and expensive to repair. Often the failure of one
laptop component requires the replacement of the entire motherboard, which is usually more expensive than a
desktop motherboard due to the large number of integrated components.
Nvidia SLI and ATI Crossfire
Nvidia SLI and ATI Crossfire technology allows two or more of the same series graphics cards to be linked
together to allow faster graphics-processing capabilities. Almost all medium- to high-end Nvidia cards and most
high-end ATI cards support the technology.
They both require compatible motherboards. There is an obvious need for 2x PCI-E 16x slots to allow two cards
to be inserted into the computer. The same function can be achieved in 650i motherboards by NVIDIA, with a
pair of x8 slots. Originally, tri-Crossfire was achieved at 8x speeds with two 16x slots and one 8x slot; albeit at
a slower speed. ATI opened the technology up to Intel in 2006, and all new Intel chipsets now support
Crossfire.
SLI is a little more proprietary in its needs. It requires a motherboard with Nvidia's own NForce chipset series
to allow it to run (exception: select Intel X58 chipset based motherboards).
It is important to note that SLI and Crossfire will not usually scale to 2x the performance of a single card when
using a dual setup. They also do not double the effective amount of VRAM or memory bandwidth.
Bootstrapping using the BIOS

Motherboards contain some non-volatile memory to initialize the system and load an operating system from
some external peripheral device. Microcomputers such as the Apple II and IBM PC used read-only memory
chips, mounted in sockets on the motherboard. At power-up, the central processor would load its program
counter with the address of the boot ROM, and start executing ROM instructions, displaying system
information on the screen and running memory checks, which would in turn start loading memory from an
external or peripheral device (disk drive). If none is available, then the computer can perform tasks from other
memory stores or display an error message, depending on the model and design of the computer and version of
the BIOS.

Most modern motherboard designs use a BIOS, stored in an EEPROM chip soldered to the motherboard, to
bootstrap the motherboard. (Socketed BIOS chips are widely used, also.) By booting the motherboard, the
memory, circuitry, and peripherals are tested and configured. This process is known as a computer Power-On
Self Test (POST) and may include testing some of the following devices:
 floppy drive
 network controller
 CD-ROM drive
 DVD-ROM drive
 SCSI hard drive
 IDE, EIDE, or SATA hard drive
 External USB memory storage device
Any of the above devices can be stored with machine code instructions to load an operating system or a
program
Thank You.
CIS, New Baneshwor.

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Inside a custom computer.

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Video display controller

Removable media devices

 Hard disk - for medium-term storage of data.

Connects the computer to the Internet and/or other computers.

 Modem - for dial-up connections or sending digital faxes. (outdated)

Copyrights © Creative Innovation Solutions, Baneshwor, Kathmandu, Nepal.

 Text input devices

 Image, Video output devices

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Functional relationship (network architecture)

Personal area network

Local area network

Campus area network

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Metropolitan area network

Wide area network

Global area network

Virtual private network

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The Internet is a specific internetwork. It consists of a worldwide interconnection of governmental,

Basic hardware components

Network interface cards

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Bridges come in three basic types:

1. Local bridges: Directly connect local area networks (LANs)

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Cisco 1800 Router

Nortel ERS 8600

Cisco 7600 Routers

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Forwarding plane (a.k.a. data plane)

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Routers for Internet connectivity and internal use

Small Office Home Office (SOHO) connectivity

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A Cisco ASM/2-32EM router deployed at CERN in 1987.

Video Graphics Array

DE15F VGA port (on the video generator)

DE15M VGA connector (on the Display device)

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VGA compared to other standard resolutions.

The VGA specifications are as follows:

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Parameter Value Unit

Clock frequency 25.175 MHz[8]

Horizontal pixels 640

Horizontal sync polarity Negative

Total time for each line 31.77 µs

Front porch (A) 0.94 µs

Sync pulse length (B) 3.77 µs

Back porch (C) 1.89 µs

Active video (D) 25.17 µs

(Total horizontal sync time 6.60 µs)

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Parameter Value Unit

Vertical lines 480

Vertical sync polarity Negative

Vertical frequency 59.94 Hz

Front porch (E) 0.35 ms