GATE Syllabus for Computer Science & Information Technology - CS

syllabus paper 1-2

b.tech(Cse) -II Year.r10 Students

KAKINDA INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

I YEAR

IT Workshop

Notes by

S.David Paul (KIET)

1. The Motherboard

Form factors:

· ATX

· microATX

Connects to:

· Microprocessors via

sockets

· Main memory via Slots

· Peripherals via one of

o External ports

o Internal cables

Common Manufacturers:

· ASUS

· Foxconn

· Intel

What is Mother Board?

The main circuit board of a microcomputer. The motherboard contains the connectors for

attaching additional boards. Typically, the motherboard contains the CPU, BIOS, memory, mass

storage interfaces, serial and parallel ports, expansion slots, and all the controllers required to

control standard peripheral devices, such as the display screen, keyboard, and disk drive.

Collectively, all these chips that reside on the motherboard are known as the motherboard's

chipset.

Fig .1.3

Notes by David (KIET)

Fig 1.4 Top View of Mother Board Fig 1.5 Rear View

Components of a Motherboard

The motherboard contains many connections for all type of components. Motherboards contain

expansion slots such as the ISA, PCI, AGP and DIMM sockets. It also contains external

connections for your onboard sound card, USB ports, Serial and Parallel ports, PS/2 ports for

your keyboard and mouse as well as network and Firewire connections.

Types of Slots ?

The Motherboard has connectors on it to allow you to add additional controllers to the

motherboard. These were anticipated to be things like display boards, disk controllers, I/O cards,

and others. To facilitate this the Motherboard is configured with connectors. The first ones of

these were known as ISA bus. These connectors allowed the motherboard to be expanded by

adding circuit boards to the motherboard.

ISA (Industry Standard Adapter) - These are the long black slots. They are the oldest and slowest

of the bunch. They support 8 and 16 bit cards (usually stuff like sound cards and modems). You

usually won't even find these on newer computers.

PCI (Peripheral Connect Interface) - These are the current "standard" expansion slot. They

support 32 bit cards, transfer data quickly, and take up less space on the motherboard. Usually

white in color.

Notes by David (KIET)

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port ) - This is a newer type of slot and it's designed for video cards.

It bypasses the slower PCI & ISA slots and provides better / faster 3D video.

PS/2 connector

The