Components of a PC for newer people :) (maybe sticky?)

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Component Essentials, A guide for users. (maybe sticky?)

Well this is a thread to guide alot of people to the knowledge of what certian computer parts are and what they are used for.

What is the motherboard? This is one of the most common questions i hear at my workplace...
So the Motherboard:
The motherboard is the most essential component in a personal computer. It is the piece of hardware which contains the computer's micro-processing chip and everything attached to it is vital to making the computer run.

Components:
The socket: This defines what type of processor a computer uses, allowing the computer to run. There are many types of sockets but the most Common socket types are AM2, AM2+, and AM3 - these three socket types are owned and manufactured by AMD.

Intel uses a different socket format, LGA 771, LGA 1366, and LGA 775 which is the most common in Intel motherboards.

Chipset:
This forms the computer's logic system. This is usually composed of two parts called bridges (a "north" bridge and its opposite, "south" bridge), which connects the CPU to the rest of the system.

The CPU:
The CPU is the brains and the bronz of the computer. Sometimes referred to simply as the central processor, but more commonly called processor, the CPU is where most calculations take place. In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important element of a computer system. It is essential for a computer to turn on :) (Once again:

Common socket types are AM2, AM2+, and AM3 - these three socket types are owned and manufactured by AMD.

Intel uses a different socket format, LGA 771, LGA 1366, and LGA 775 which is the most common in Intel motherboards.)

The Bios:
A Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) chip which controls the most basic function of a computer, and hardware control.
The bios also contains real-time clock which is a battery-operated chip which maintains the system's time, and other basic functions.

The motherboard also has slots or ports for the attachment of various peripherals or support system/hardware. PCI-E slot on most newer motherboards.This is used exclusively for video cards. There is also Some amount of PCI slots, these control other devices such as networking cards, sound cards, etc. There is also 2-8 ports (Depending on motherboard) for RAM also known as random access memory.

What is RAM?
Random Access Memory (RAM) provides space for your computer to read and write data to be accessed by the CPU (central processing unit). It is essential for a computer to even turn on :)

Graphics Card:
The graphics card (sometimes known as a Graphcs processing unit or a video card) is a piece of hardware installed in a computer that is responsible for rendering the image on the computer's monitor or display screen. The most common mode now these GPU's run in is PCI-E 2.0 or PCI-E. Older motherboards will most likely use AGP.There is also integrated graphics accelerators which sometimes come ON board on a motherboard. This takes away some memory from your RAM and utilizes it as a onboard graphics card, but is not even close to as powerfull as an independant graphics card.

Hard Disk Drive:
The hard disk drive is also sometimes known as the HDD or Hard drive. This device stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. There are many different speeeds which the disk rotates. The faster RPM the faster data can be written.

Hope this helps some people out with some questoins about pc components :)

Post will be updated with more information constantly.

More information, post here or visit http://www.tech-faq.com/, which some of this information was taken from.
 
CPU is essential for computer to turn on. Crap i don't have 200 dollars to fix my pc...........
 
He wrote it himself. Trust me i know how to check. But anyway you could've been alittle more thorough in the definitions. E.g:

Define what the northbridge and southbridge do.

Explain that Chipset is also referred to motherboard.

You labeled the socket types twice, in the cpu section you couldve just named off some popular processors produced by each company.

Other than that its a good guide
 
Spec wrote a good article. You just need to credit the original authors.

So the Motherboard:
The motherboard is the most essential component in a personal computer. It is the piece of hardware which contains the computer's micro-processing chip and everything attached to it is vital to making the computer run.

Tech-FAQ said:
The motherboard is the most essential component in a personal computer . it is the piece of hardware which contains the computer's micro-processing chip and everything attached to it is vital to making the computer run.

http://www.tech-faq.com/motherboard.shtml
 
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