Sections of the site
Editor's Choice:
- Why does a laptop need a small SSD, and is it worth installing Windows on it?
- Inserting a frame. Creating frames. Providing a noframes fallback
- Windows System Restore Never-ending automatic recovery preparation
- Repairing a flash drive using programs How to repair a USB port on a laptop
- The disk structure is damaged; reading is impossible, what should I do?
- What is hard drive cache memory and why is it needed? What is the cache size responsible for?
- What does computer consist of?
- The structure of the system unit - which components are responsible for the operation of the computer Features of the system unit internal devices
- How to change a hard drive to an SSD
- Input devices include
Advertising
| Computer device. What does computer consist of? Internal devices of the system unit What is inside the system unit of a millionaire computer |
|
Published: 01/14/2017
Hello friends, System unit case The case is usually an iron box that is needed for easy mounting of the internal components of the system unit. It has special holes for mounting the motherboard, a basket for hard drives and cd/dvd drives, external holes on the front and back for external connectors for the internal components of the system unit (motherboard, video card, etc.). There are also a bunch of holes for coolers/fans to ensure the best cooling of the internal components of the system unit. Particularly cool cases also have a so-called “cable-management” system. What is cable management?Cable management is a system of special grooves inside the case for laying cables and wires between the internal components of the system unit. All this is needed so that the wires stretched throughout the entire case do not interfere with the incoming and outgoing air flows freely circulating inside the system unit case. In short, so that the wires do not interfere with cooling. What are the case sizes?The cases themselves come in three main sizes: Mini Tower, Mid Tower and Full Tower. Simply put, small, medium and large. The size of the case is selected depending on what size motherboard you plan to stuff into it and what size you plan to install internal components into it. Do you need a case?Generally speaking, the case is not a mandatory element of the system unit. The computer can work safely without a case. However, without a case, the computer will not work as efficiently. The internal components of the system unit will not be properly cooled and will often become covered with a layer of dust. And it will be more difficult for you to tinker with a computer without a case. The basis of every system unit, if not a computer. This is the most basic board to which all the others are already connected. The motherboard is responsible for the interaction of all internal components with each other.  It regulates the operating frequencies of the processor and RAM strips. Regulates the rotation speed of coolers and the speed of data transfer between hard drives. Distributes the current supply between internal components. Checks the functionality of all components connected to it when the computer is turned on using the BIOS. Motherboard connectorsAmong other things, the most connectors go from the motherboard to the outer panel of the case. All or almost all USB connectors, PS/2 ports for connecting a mouse and keyboard. A network socket for an RJ45 connector can also be provided if the network card is built into the motherboard. Sometimes the motherboard also comes with DVI or VGA video connectors. This happens if the video card is built into the motherboard or the processor has a built-in video chip. CPU You could say the brain of the computer. Responsible for the speed of performing various calculations. For example, for the speed of encoding video files, for the speed of interpretation and execution of program code, for calculating the movement of certain objects, and so on. The processor is mounted in a special one on the motherboard.  Each processor has its own characteristics. Such as core frequency, number of cores, cache size, etc. We won’t go into this in detail for now. RAM sticks As is clear from the name, these strips are responsible for the amount of RAM on the computer. The more sticks and the larger they are, the more RAM the computer has.  The main characteristic of RAM sticks is the frequency range at which they can operate. The size of each RAM stick is also taken into account. It is recommended to always install RAM sticks of the same size and from the same manufacturer in your computer, in order to avoid various system conflicts. The brackets are installed in special slots on the motherboard. Video card An integral part of any computer. Responsible for displaying images on the user's monitor. Responsible for the quality of computer graphics and the performance of 3D applications in general.  There are both external video cards and internal ones, built into the motherboard or processor. However, on most home PCs the video card is external. A modern external video card differs from its ancestors in a large number of coolers and a massive radiator grille. All this is needed to improve the cooling of the card and, as a result, increase its performance. The main parameters of a video card are the amount of its video memory and the frequency range at which the video card operates. Hard disks There may be several of them or there may be only one hard drive. There must be at least one so that you can install some operating system on it.  In the picture above you can see an example of one of the modern HDDs, which is connected to the motherboard using a SATA cable. The main parameters of a hard drive are the speed of reading and writing data. I have already written about how they are measured. CD/DVD/Bluray drives Needed to read and write files to disk. They are gradually becoming obsolete, as low-volume CDs and DVDs are being replaced by fast and large flash drives and external hard drives, which are connected to the system unit via USB cables.  The disk drive is not a mandatory element of the system unit. The computer will be able to work quite calmly without it. But without a disk drive it will not be possible to work with CDs, DVDs and Bluray discs. The main parameters of any drive are the speed of reading and writing from the disk and the speed of writing/burning data to the disk. power unit It is needed in order to properly distribute electricity from your home network between all components of the system unit.  The wires from the power supply go to power the motherboard, coolers, external video card and hard drives. The processor and RAM are powered by the motherboard. In addition, the motherboard regulates the voltage supply to the processor and RAM to increase or decrease performance. Other boards Quite often, many system units contain additional boards. These can be external network cards, sound cards, TV tuners, GPS beacons, etc. The whole thing is connected to the motherboard using PCI connectors.  In the picture above you can see an example of an external Wi-Fi network card. It has become very popular recently due to the widespread use of home Wi-Fi networks. It is an ideal solution when you want to connect a stationary PC to the Internet, but there is no desire to run a twisted pair cable from the system unit to the router. Assembled system unit When assembled, the system unit will look something like this.  In the upper right corner we see the power supply. We see how cables branch off from it to disk drives, to hard drives, to the motherboard and coolers. Exactly what I wrote to you about. In the lower left corner we see three hard drives, and above them a basket with drives. In the center is the largest motherboard. It has an impressively sized cooler located above the processor and underneath the whole thing is some kind of video card. That's basically all I wanted to tell you about today. I hope that the internal structure of the system unit is no longer a mystery to you. In any case, this information will be useful to you when in the following articles we learn how to choose components for a budget and assemble a computer system unit yourself. Do you want to learn how to understand computer components without the help of specialists and improve your computer yourself? To do this, you will need basic knowledge of the internal structure of a PC, which you will gain by reading this article. In the era of the 90s, when the personal computer market in Russia was just beginning to emerge, the few companies that sold computer equipment mainly offered customers already assembled system units. For the most part, they were assembled there in the office, on the knees, to the buyer’s order from components that God sent, and the quality of this very notorious assembly directly depended on the direct hands of the assembler. But did anyone pay attention to this at that time? There were practically no branded solutions on the market, and even such a homemade version of a home computer was rare and very expensive. At the turn of the century, the situation in the computer industry changed dramatically. The active development of IT technologies has led to rapid growth of high-tech production in Asia. A large flow of all kinds of components and peripherals poured into the market, creating conditions for healthy competition, which led to a significant reduction in prices for computer hardware, and this in turn gave a powerful impetus to the mass distribution of PCs. Computer stores began to multiply like mushrooms, attracting customers with ever new types of services, among which one of the most popular was custom PC assembly. Its essence was that the buyer himself chose the components for his future computer and after an hour, an hour and a half, he picked it up from the store in assembled form. The most advanced users have gone even further. It was during this period that assembling a system unit with one’s own hands began to be actively practiced, fortunately there were enough all kinds of publications related to this topic. This way to get the coveted home computer was significantly cheaper than buying a ready-made solution (at least you didn’t have to pay for assembly). Another advantage of “self-assembly” is the ability to select components of a certain manufacturer and quality, without being tied to the assortment of one store. Having assembled the computer yourself, in the future you could easily upgrade it (improve it) or simply replace/add any components without fear of losing the warranty, since in this case it was for each part separately. But when purchasing a ready-made “system unit”, all the components inside it were sealed with stickers, the tearing of which, as a rule, was a reason for refusing to fulfill your warranty obligations in the event of any malfunctions. Recently, the issue of assembling a computer with your own hands has somehow faded into the background. Firstly, part of the reason for this is the mass distribution of laptops, netbooks and all-in-one PCs, the mobility of which in the eyes of many users is preferable to bulky desktops. And secondly, at the present time, ready-made solutions along with a pre-installed operating system are now often cheaper than “self-assembly” and a separate box with the OS. This is especially true for the most popular, lower and middle segments of the market. So does a modern user of computer technology even need knowledge of its internals? In order to answer this question, I will give several situations in which knowledge of a PC, in my opinion, would be very useful to you: - Buying a new computer yourself. I think there is no need to explain that this is a rather important moment. And if you don’t want to be deceived or at least disappointed with your future purchase, then at least a superficial knowledge of the computer’s hardware is strongly recommended. Remember that the phrase: “I need a computer for the Internet, watching movies, listening to music and sometimes playing” is clearly not enough for the seller to be able to choose the optimal solution for you. As a rule, such requirements will be satisfied by a sufficiently large number of offers and you will choose from them; in this case, it turns out that it will be the sales consultant, not you. And if so, you run a great risk of purchasing something that will not at all meet your expectations. Surely, before purchasing, you will want to study the current prices for computer equipment in order to at least approximately understand what costs await you. Having previously studied the range of ready-made solutions in the store, on price tags, in price lists or online catalogs, the name of certain devices will most likely be presented to you, for example, in the following form: SystemblockCore i5-2310/S1155/H61/4Gb DDR3-1333/1024Mb HD6770/HDD 500Gb-7200-16Mb/DVD+-RW/Sound 7.1/GLAN/ATX 450W Laptop15.6”/i7-2630QM(2.00)/4Gb/GTX460M-1Gb/750Gb/DVD-RW/WiFi/BT/Cam/W7HP64 If you are not yet familiar with the internal structure of a computer, then I am almost sure that you have understood absolutely nothing in these names, which contain the most important characteristics of devices. After reading this article to the end, you can calmly understand what this abracadabra means. Independent upgrade and purchase of components (improving a computer by adding or partially replacing computer parts). This feature is fully applicable only to system units, since in mobile devices the upgrade capabilities are limited to only two subsystems: RAM and hard drive. Therefore, when purchasing laptops, netbooks or all-in-one computers, you must immediately clearly determine the performance of the device you require, which is almost impossible to do without knowledge of the internal structure. On desktops, you can replace or add something at any time if you wish, and sell old hardware at some online auction. In general, purchasing components yourself in stores, as well as selling and exchanging them through various “hardware” flea markets on the Internet, can significantly reduce your costs aimed at upgrading your computer. But there are pitfalls here too. The wrong choice of components when purchasing a new system unit can lead to the fact that modifying your computer will be almost impossible. And if it is possible, then only by replacing almost all components, which, as you understand, cannot be called an upgrade. And the names of components, as well as finished computers, are no less confusing and difficult for an ignorant buyer to understand. - Do-it-yourself minor repairs. Here, as in the case of an upgrade, knowledge of the internal structure of a PC will be fully useful only to owners of desktop computers. For example, there is a power surge at your home, which is not that uncommon. The consequence of this event is often a partial failure of your computer. In order to save money, your nerves, time and effort, with certain knowledge, you can easily replace burnt components right at home. Moreover, in such cases, it is practically useless to take your computer for warranty service, since this kind of damage is not covered by the warranty. Even if your knowledge is not enough to replace failed parts, at least you can estimate their value on the market and buy it yourself at a better price than they will offer you at the service center. In this way, it is possible not only to reduce repair costs, but also to avoid unauthorized installation of used parts passed off as new. METHODOLOGY We will begin our familiarization process with the PC device with a description of its main components. There are seven of them in modern desktop computers and laptops:
We will talk about each of them in detail, and at the end of the description we will consider examples of real names of components from the catalogs of computer hardware sellers. Thus, we will immediately learn to apply the acquired theoretical knowledge in practice. At the end of the review, for the sake of completeness, we will briefly consider additional devices installed in mobile and desktop PCs to expand their functionality. CPU(CPU or central processing unit CPU) is the main piece of computer hardware and its computing center. Essentially, it is a machine instruction executor and is designed to execute complex computer programs. A CPU has several main characteristics, but for the average person, only two are important - clock speed and number of cores. The first mass-produced multi-core processors for desktop PCs were released in early 2006 and have now almost completely replaced single-core processors. To significantly speed up computing, any modern processor is equipped with built-in very fast access memory, which is designed to store data that is most likely to be requested by the processor. This buffer is called a cache and can be of the first (L1), second (L2) or third (L3) level. The fastest memory and, in fact, an integral part of the processor, is the first level cache, the volume of which is very small and amounts to 128 KB (64x2). Most modern CPUs cannot function without an L1 cache. The second fastest is the L2 cache and its volume can reach 1-12 MB. Well, the slowest, but also the most impressive in size (can be more than 24 MB) is the third level cache and not all processors have it. Another important point is the concept of a processor socket or processor socket, called a socket, into which this processor is installed. Different generations or families of CPUs, as a rule, are installed in their own unique sockets, and this fact must be taken into account when selecting a motherboard - processor combination. Due to the complexity and high-tech production, the highest requirements for product quality, there are not so many competitive companies producing central processors, and for the desktop PC market there are only two - Intel and AMD. Their long-standing rivalry began in the early 90s, although over these 20 years the share of processors sold by AMD has always been significantly lower than the share of Intel. However, Advanced Micro Devices products have always had an attractive performance/price ratio with a fairly affordable retail price for its products, which gives it the opportunity to confidently maintain its market share of about 19% of the global share.
For ease of positioning in the market, each manufacturer divides its products into different families, depending on the capabilities and performance of processors. In this article, we will get acquainted only with those lines of companies that are currently relevant and are in retail sale.
Table of the main characteristics of desktop processor families from Intel and AMD
Concluding this topic, finally, let's look at the price list of any computer company and try to understand some item from the processor catalog, applying the knowledge we have just gained. For example, let's decipher a record like: “Processor Socket 1155 Intel Core i5 G620 (2.6GHz, L3 3Mb) BOX.”
RAM(random access memory RAM) - the most important part of the system, responsible for temporary storage of data and commands necessary for the processor to perform various operations. The main characteristics of memory are its clock frequency, which determines its bandwidth and capacity. An equally important indicator for memory is the generation to which it belongs. Naturally, memory of different generations has completely different characteristics (supply voltage, power consumption, clock frequency, bandwidth, latency, etc.). As part of this review, we will not dwell on this in detail, the only thing you need to remember is that the connectors for installing memory modules are different for different generations, and this must be taken into account when choosing a combination of RAM and motherboard. Today's desktop and mobile PCs primarily use DIMM (Dual Data Rate Memory) or DDR (Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access) memory from three different generations. The generation number is always reflected in the name of the memory module. It should be noted that at the moment, first-generation DDR memory is already very outdated and can only be found in computers four or five years old, and second-generation DDR2 RAM is currently being actively replaced by DDR3.
Now let's see what the name of a memory module looks like in a real computer company catalog and try to figure it out. For example : “RAM 4Gb PC3-10600 1333MHz DDR3 DIMM”.
Sometimes RAM is sold in sets of 2 or 3 modules, for example: "RAM 4Gb (2x2Gb) PC3-10600 1333MHz DDR3 DIMM." Why is this being done? The fact is that modern computers use a dual-channel (much less often a three-channel) memory operating mode, which in practice increases the memory throughput mode by up to 70%, which undoubtedly increases the overall system performance. For this mode to be enabled, RAM modules must be installed in pairs (triples) on the computer, and this pair (triple) must have the same characteristics. Dual channel mode Three channel mode
That is why manufacturers already select memory modules in pairs (three) at the factory and test them for error-free operation. Modules that pass the test are packaged together and sold as a set. But this does not mean that modules sold separately will not work well together. It’s just that the possibility of any errors still exists, although it is very small. Always try to use multi-channel memory mode to improve performance by installing modules only in pairs (triples). Remember this. VIDEO CARD(graphics adapter, graphics card, video adapter) - a device that generates a graphic image and displays it on the monitor screen. In the era of the birth of desktop PCs, graphics adapters performed only the function of displaying an image already generated by the processor on the screen. The current generation of graphics cards not only displays images, but also generates them independently. Modern video adapters can be built-in (integrated) into the computer’s motherboard or be an expansion card that is inserted into a special slot for PCI-Express video cards (previously this slot was AGP, which is now obsolete) on the motherboard. The first group of adapters, as a rule, is used in budget solutions for working with office applications, where we are not talking about the formation of complex three-dimensional images and in general the requirements for the graphic component are small. And although many integrated solutions have recently allowed users to watch high-definition (HD) video and enjoy entry-level three-dimensional (3D) graphics, their capabilities cannot be compared with the capabilities of video cards that are released as stand-alone solutions.
Essentially, a video adapter, which is an independent expansion card, is another computer in your computer. It has its own graphics processor (GPU) or even two, video memory (GDDR), cooling system, power system, video controller and digital-to-analog converter. Such a complex video card design is due to the very high requirements for computing resources to create a realistic and dynamic three-dimensional image in real time. Therefore, in order to fully enjoy the beauty of modern 3D games, it is necessary that your computer be equipped with a graphics card of the highest level.
The main characteristics of a video card are the clock frequencies of the video processor and video memory, the number of working execution units inside the graphics processor, the width of the video memory bus (affects the amount of data transferred by the memory per clock cycle) and the amount of video memory. As a rule, modern graphics adapters have several outputs with the same or different graphic interfaces for connecting a variety of monitors and TVs. Now the most common are the analog VGA and digital interfaces: DVI, HDMI (miniHDMI), DisplayPort (miniDP). The last two, in addition to video, also transmit sound. Quite a lot of companies are currently engaged in the production of video card boards, but strangely enough, the entire graphics adapter market is divided into only two main competing camps. The fact is that the graphics processor determines almost all the main characteristics of the card, on which its performance depends and is its key component. Well, in the design and production of graphics chips, as in the case of central processors, since the mid-90s, two irreconcilable rivals have been fiercely fighting for consumers - the Canadian company ATI, purchased and now owned by AMD, and the Californian NVIDIA. It is worth noting that over all these years, none of them have managed to tip the scales in their favor, and today their shares in the video processor market can be estimated as 50 to 50. All video cards for widespread use (for home PCs) manufactured by those based on graphics chips from ATI (AMD) are called Radeon, and those released on NVIDIA logic are called GeForce. These companies also have professional solutions for workstations. These lines are called Quadro from NVIDIA and FireGL from ATI (AMD).
Today on the shelves of computer stores you can find video adapters built on graphics chips of two generations at once, and in some cases even three. NVIDIA has the GeForce GT 2XX, GT 4XX families (morally outdated lines and now mostly only budget models remain on sale), GTX 5XX and GTX 6XX, and AMD (ATI) Radeon HD 5XXX, HD 6XXX and HD 7XXX. The principle of forming a model range of graphic cards for both companies is similar. As a rule, models in the series differ in the clock frequencies of the video chip and memory, the different number of disabled execution units and the width of the memory bus. Depending on the combinations of the above characteristics, the overall performance of the video card and its cost are determined. I think there is no need to explain that the higher the performance and capabilities of the video adapter, the higher its price. Below is a summary table of the most popular GPUs and their budget positioning in the market. Budget positioning of GPUs
Next, it is worth mentioning such important technologies as SLI (3-Way SLI) from NVIDIA and CrossFire (CrossFire X) from AMD (ATI), which allow you to combine the computing power of two, three or even four video cards installed in one computer. The simultaneous use of several video cards in one system can be interesting in cases where it is necessary to obtain a super-efficient video system that exceeds the power of any existing single video card. There are also cases when installing two mid-range (performance) class video adapters is more economically profitable than installing one video card of the same performance. To implement these technologies, it is necessary to have two or more slots for PCI-Express video cards on the motherboard, as well as support for these same technologies by the motherboard chipset.
In order to make life easier for developers of games and multimedia applications, Microsoft came up with an independent DirectX software package, which saves them from writing programs for each individual video card and gives them the opportunity to use ready-made solutions from this library. In turn, video cards, for their part, must also support one or another version of the DirectX library, which affects the ability of the adapter to perform a certain set of functions at the hardware level. The later the version of DirectX the video card supports, the larger the set of functions and, accordingly, the wider its capabilities for creating special effects. If the game was created using a new version of DirectX, and the video card does not support it, you will not be able to fully enjoy all the video effects provided by the developers. And finally, let's look at a couple of examples of video card names from a real computer catalog and break them down: Example 1: "Video card 1536MbGTX580,PCI-E, 2xDVI,HDMIDisplayPortOEM"
Example 2: " Video card 2048Mb HD6950, PCI-E,VGA, DVI, HDMI, 2xmini DP Retail»
HDD(HDD) is a data storage device based on the principles of magnetic recording. The main device in your computer on which all information is located, from the installed operating system to your personal files.
The main characteristics of this device are: Capacity- the amount of data that can be stored on the drive. Until recently, the entire range of hard drives fell into the range from 80 to 1000 Gigabytes. But even now modern drives, thanks to perpendicular recording technology, have sizes of 3 Terabytes (3000 GB). Physical size. Drives with a width of 3.5 inches (rarely 2.5 inches) are used in desktop computers, and 2.5 or 1.8 inches are used in mobile devices (laptops or netbooks). Spindle speed. An important characteristic on which access time and average data transfer speed depend. The higher the rotation speed, the faster the hard drive. It is measured in revolutions per minute and generally has the following values: 5400 rpm (mainly laptops or high-capacity 3.5-inch wide drives), 7200 rpm (desktop PCs, less often laptops), 10000 and 15000 rpm (high-performance PCs or servers). Lovers of silence should remember that the noise level of the drive increases significantly at high speeds and when assembling a quiet system, choosing a drive with a speed above 7200 rpm is not recommended. Connection interface - the type of connector and bus used to connect and exchange data with the hard drive. For a long time, the most common interface in desktop and mobile computers was Parallel ATA (aka IDE, ATA, Ultra ATA, UDMA 133) with a maximum throughput of 133 MB/sec, which used the principle of parallel data transfer. Because of this, the connection connector was quite wide and had 40 pins, and bulky 80-wire connection cables always got in the way in the case and interfered with normal cooling. And although many modern motherboards are still equipped with an IDE connector, the days of this interface are numbered, and it has long been replaced by a new standard - Serial ATA (SATA), which uses a serial data transfer interface. The throughput of the modern 3rd revision of SATA III is 600 MB/sec and exceeds the capabilities of PATA by 4.5 times. Moreover, SATA uses a miniature 7-pin connector and, accordingly, a much smaller cable area than IDE, which reduces the resistance to air blowing across computer components and simplifies wiring inside the system unit. Random access time- the average time during which the read/write head is positioned on an arbitrary section of the magnetic disk. As a rule, for disks intended for installation in desktop and laptop computers, it ranges from 8 to 16 milliseconds and is the main brake on the speed of a magnetic drive. For comparison, for new-fangled solid-state drives (SSDs) it is 1 ms. Buffer- intermediate memory (cache), designed to smooth out differences in read/write speed and transfer speed over the interface. In modern media it varies from 8 to 64 MB. For curious users, in detailed descriptions of hard drives you can find additional parameters, such as: noise level, reliability, energy consumption, standby time, shock resistance and data transfer speed from the internal and external zones of the disk. More recently, in the modern magnetic storage market, all products were represented by four manufacturers: the world's largest Western Digital (WD) and Seagate, as well as Hitachi and Samsung. But in 2011, the situation changed, WD acquired Hitachi's hard drive division, and Seagate bought Samsung's division. Thus, to two segments of the computer market (production of central and graphic processors), a third has been added (production of hard drives), where only two competing companies are engaged in the development and production of products. Finishing the description of hard drives, we, as usual, will look at an example of a drive name from a computer catalog and try to understand what is written there. Hard drive 3.5" 1 Tb 7200rpm 64Mb cache Western Digital Caviar Black SATA III (6Gb/ s)
I hope everything is clear here and we can move on. OPTICAL DRIVE- a device designed for reading, writing and rewriting information from optical storage media in the form of a plastic disk (CD, DVD, BD).
In the early 90s, the most common optical media was the compact disc (CD), which could store 700 MB of various data. That is why the first optical drives could only read and only CDs and were called CD-ROM. The next actively developing format was and is now the most common DVD. Disks of this standard could already record 4.7 GB of information, which is almost 7 times more than on a CD. Computer drives designed to play DVDs were called DVD-ROMs, while the ability to read regular CDs on this device was preserved. At the same time, the first CD recording devices began to appear on the market, which were called CD-RW. Then combined optical drives (ComboDrive or “combine”) appeared, which could read CDs and DVDs, but only write CDs. Progress, of course, did not stop there, and the next logical step was the appearance on the market of DVD recording drives that could read and write any disc. True, initially they were very expensive and for quite a long time the most popular optical device installed in home computers was the combo drive due to its affordability. But over time, DVD-RW drives have become cheaper, and this class of optical devices is still the most common on all types of computers. Today, the maximum capacity of a DVD disc is 8.5 GB (double-layer disc). But with the advent of high-definition (HD) multimedia content, this volume was not enough for its storage and distribution, and therefore in the spring of 2006 a new optical media format appeared on the market - Blu-Ray. A single-layer Blu-Ray disc can store 25 GB of digital data, including high-definition video and audio, a double-layer can hold 50 GB, a triple-layer 100 GB, and a quad-layer 128 GB (BDXL). Modern Blu-Ray optical drives (BD-ROM) can read, write and rewrite not only new format discs (BD), but also previous ones - DVD and CD. The main characteristics of optical drives are the speed of reading, writing and rewriting data in various formats. Previously, they were indicated directly in the drive name itself, but due to increased support for various disk formats, they are now indicated only in the detailed description of the device. A pleasant bonus may be the presence of marking technology for specially prepared disks, which allows you to obtain an image on its reverse surface. Like hard drives, optical drives can have two connection interfaces, the legacy IDE and the modern SATA. An example of an optical drive name looks quite laconic and contains a minimum of information: Blu-ray drive Pioneer BDR-206DBK, Black, SATA, OEM
As you can see, everything is simple here, but at the same time, to understand all the capabilities of the drive, you need to study its detailed description. Now, having become acquainted with the main components that make up a computer, it’s time to look at the part that unites it all into a single whole. MOTHERBOARD(motherboard, mother, main board, motherboard) is a complex multi-layer printed circuit board on which the main components of a personal computer are installed (central processor, RAM controller and RAM itself, graphics adapter, controllers for connecting hard drives and optical drives, basic interface controllers I/O, sound and network card). As a rule, the motherboard also contains connectors (slots) for connecting additional cards and devices via USB, PCI and PCI-Express buses. In this material, to simplify perception, we will consider only motherboards for desktop PCs, without bothering ourselves with products for mobile computers. Moreover, for a general understanding of the issue this will be quite enough. Main motherboard components
The key component of the motherboard is the chipset (system logic set) - a set of chips that connects the CPU to RAM, graphics controller and peripheral controllers. It is the set of system logic that determines all the key features of the motherboard, what devices can be connected to it and, in fact, all the future capabilities of your computer. All motherboards can be divided into two main camps - motherboards for Intel processors and motherboards for AMD processors. Accordingly, they also produce system logic sets for their processors. Within these two main groups, further division is conveniently carried out along processor connectors (sockets). Today, motherboards with four types of sockets are available for Intel processors, and three for AMD. For each socket, developers have several sets of system logic, aimed at different budget segments of the market.
As can be seen from the block diagram, there are quite a lot of varieties of chipsets, and therefore motherboards built on them and their modifications. Let's see what basic characteristics of a computer can be affected by one or another chipset modification and what you should pay attention to first:
Finally, it is worth mentioning another important characteristic of the motherboard - the form factor. This is a standard that determines its dimensions, places of attachment to the computer case and its entire wiring (location of interfaces, ports, slots and types of connectors for power connections). The modern and most common standards are ATX (the dominant format), micro-ATX and mini-ITX. As you would expect, the names of motherboards in price lists look very cumbersome and are the most difficult to understand, since they include quite a lot of device characteristics. Let's look at one of them using an example: Motherboard ASUS P8P67 DELUXE (B3), Socket 1155, Intel P67, 4xDDR3, 3xPCI-E 16x, 2xPCI-E 1x, 2xPCI, 4xSATA II+4xSATA III, RAID0/1/5/10, 7.1 Sound, Glan, USB3. 0, ATX, Retail
So, the hardest part is over and we are reaching the finish line. POWER SUPPLY AND CASE power unit(BP) - designed to supply computer components with direct current electrical energy, as well as convert the mains voltage to the required values. To some extent, the power supply can perform the functions of stabilizing and protecting computer components from minor voltage surges.
The main characteristic of a power supply is its power, which in modern products varies from 300 to 1500W (Watt). As a rule, a power of 400 - 450 W is sufficient for an office computer, but for advanced gaming systems with several video cards installed, a very powerful power supply may be required, since at peak load the power consumption of such a system can reach from 700 - 1000 W. It is necessary to take into account the fact that it is worth choosing the power of the power supply with a margin of the calculated peak load, because in this case it will heat up less, which means that its cooling system will work more quietly. A gentle regime will also have a beneficial effect on service life. Do not forget that over time, due to various facts, the power ratings of the power supply may drop by 15-20% of the nominal. As a rule, the more powerful the power supply, the more connectors and their modifications for powering various computer components it contains. True, in most cases the number of these same connectors is excessive, and in order to compactly lay a large volume of wires in the case, you have to spend a lot of effort. That is why many manufacturers produce power supplies with detachable cables, where you can connect only the connectors you need. Beware of buying cheap low-quality power supplies from unknown manufacturers. All computer components are powered by low voltage (+3, + 5 and +12 V) and in order to damage any board, a discharge of static electricity from an electrified sweater is sufficient. What can we say if the power supply allows even a slight voltage surge to pass through itself or produces abnormal values. The consumer qualities of these devices are not high either. As practice shows, the real power value of such products is much lower than what is stated on the labels, and their service life is short. As a rule, in component catalogs the names of power supplies are some of the most capacious and short, for example: Power supply ATX 1000W OCZ Z1000M-UN
It's as simple as that, but don't think that choosing a power source is a trivial task. Quite the contrary, this is the case when the name contains practically no useful information and it is necessary to study its detailed description, where you can find out about the number of different power connectors, its efficiency (efficiency), the presence of overvoltage protection, overload protection and much more. The right choice of a good power source is the key to long and uninterrupted operation of the hardware components of your computer. Let's say a few words about power supplies for laptops. They are usually used to charge batteries, as well as to provide the laptop with power bypassing the battery. By type of design, the laptop's power supply is an external unit. Power supplies for mobile devices are produced for a specific model (series), they have different characteristics and power connectors, and therefore there is no single standard for them, and the power supplies themselves are usually not interchangeable. When purchasing a new unit for a laptop, you have no options other than to purchase exactly the power supply that is designed for your model of mobile device. Frame(system unit) - protects the internal elements of the computer from external influences and mechanical damage, maintains internal temperature conditions and shields electromagnetic radiation. The main characteristics are its type (vertical Tower or horizontal Desktop) and size (small Mini, medium Midi, large Big). The most common format is Midi Tower, because such cases are designed to install motherboards of the most popular form factor - ATX. Also, when choosing a case, you should take into account the number and location of external USB ports, audio outputs, the presence of FireWire outputs on the external panel, the number of internal fans and their size.
Cases and power supplies for desktop PCs can be sold either separately or together as a set. As a rule, for office solutions, the entry-level and mid-range segment of home computers, it is more profitable to buy a kit. True, then you will most likely have to put up with a mediocre case design and an average power supply. Well, if you decide to assemble a powerful system or a computer with a unique design, then you only need to select these components separately, in accordance with the appetites of the selected hardware and your tastes. OPTIONAL EQUIPMENT So we looked at all the main components that make up a desktop computer. Of course, this is an incomplete list of components that can be located inside the system unit, but only those that are required to be installed in any computer. To complete the picture, let's still touch on the remaining components, but only briefly: Floppy drive(FDD) - floppy disk drive with a physical size of 3.5 inches. With the advent of flash drives, these media have almost completely lost their relevance, and the drives themselves can only be found on very old computers.
Card reader- a device for reading all kinds of memory cards used in digital and mobile devices. As a rule, in modern computers it is installed instead of a floppy drive.
TV tuner- a device designed for receiving, playing and recording a television signal on a home computer. Most modern tuners can also receive signals from FM radio stations. According to the method of connection to the computer, they are divided into internal (for desktop PCs, connection via PCI and PCI-Ex1 connectors, for laptops via the CardBus connector) and external (USB and FireWire).
Controllers- boards that expand the interface capabilities of the motherboard. If necessary, using the controller card you can add additional USB, SATA, FireWire, IDE and LPT interfaces (connectors). They are usually installed in PCI and PCI-Ex1 slots.
Sound card- additional equipment for a personal computer that allows you to process and output sound. Provide the user with additional capabilities and quality compared to integrated solutions. They can be either internal devices (installed in PCI and PCI-Ex1 slots) or external (connected to USB, and for laptops PCMCIA).
Network adapter- a device that allows a computer to communicate with other devices on the network. Can be wired (Ethernet) or wireless (Wi-Fi). Based on the method of connecting to a computer, they are also divided into external and internal. On all modern motherboards, a wired network adapter is already built-in and therefore is practically no longer used as additional equipment.
CONCLUSION Now let's go back to the beginning of the article, where as an example the real names of computer equipment (system unit and laptop) that you can encounter in any computer store were given. Definitely, without basic knowledge of PC devices, it is almost impossible to understand at least something about them. But if you carefully read the previous material, then now understanding these abbreviations will not be difficult. Let's check it out. Let's start with a description of the system unit: System unitCorei5-2310/S1155/H61/4GbDDR3-1333/1024MbHD6770/HDD 500Gb-7200-16Mb/DVD+-RW/Sound 7.1/GLAN/ATX 450W If you look carefully at this inscription, you can guess that the various components of the system unit are indicated through a slash; try to determine which ones yourself first, and then you can check our answer.
See how much information about a product can be gleaned from its name with a certain knowledge of computer hardware. Now, to consolidate the material, let's decipher the typical name of a laptop. And although its name has some meanings that may not be clear to you, after our decoding you will be fully armed. Laptop 15.6”/i7-2630QM(2.00)/4Gb/GTX460M-1Gb/750Gb/DVD-RW/Wi-Fi/BT/Cam/W7HP64
With this, let me finish our educational program on the internal structure of personal computers. I hope this material will be not only educational for you, but also a good help if you independently purchase a new computer and components or upgrade your home PC. Published: 01/14/2017Hello friends, System unit case The case is usually an iron box that is needed for easy mounting of the internal components of the system unit. It has special holes for mounting the motherboard, a basket for hard drives and cd/dvd drives, external holes on the front and back for external connectors for the internal components of the system unit (motherboard, video card, etc.). There are also a bunch of holes for coolers/fans to ensure the best cooling of the internal components of the system unit. Particularly cool cases also have a so-called “cable-management” system. What is cable management?Cable management is a system of special grooves inside the case for laying cables and wires between the internal components of the system unit. All this is needed so that the wires stretched throughout the entire case do not interfere with the incoming and outgoing air flows freely circulating inside the system unit case. In short, so that the wires do not interfere with cooling. What are the case sizes?The cases themselves come in three main sizes: Mini Tower, Mid Tower and Full Tower. Simply put, small, medium and large. The size of the case is selected depending on what size motherboard you plan to stuff into it and what size you plan to install internal components into it. Do you need a case?Generally speaking, the case is not a mandatory element of the system unit. The computer can work safely without a case. However, without a case, the computer will not work as efficiently. The internal components of the system unit will not be properly cooled and will often become covered with a layer of dust. And it will be more difficult for you to tinker with a computer without a case. The basis of every system unit, if not a computer. This is the most basic board to which all the others are already connected. The motherboard is responsible for the interaction of all internal components with each other. It regulates the operating frequencies of the processor and RAM strips. Regulates the rotation speed of coolers and the speed of data transfer between hard drives. Distributes the current supply between internal components. Checks the functionality of all components connected to it when the computer is turned on using the BIOS. Motherboard connectorsAmong other things, the most connectors go from the motherboard to the outer panel of the case. All or almost all USB connectors, PS/2 ports for connecting a mouse and keyboard. A network socket for an RJ45 connector can also be provided if the network card is built into the motherboard. Sometimes the motherboard also comes with DVI or VGA video connectors. This happens if the video card is built into the motherboard or the processor has a built-in video chip. CPU You could say the brain of the computer. Responsible for the speed of performing various calculations. For example, for the speed of encoding video files, for the speed of interpretation and execution of program code, for calculating the movement of certain objects, and so on. The processor is mounted in a special one on the motherboard. Each processor has its own characteristics. Such as core frequency, number of cores, cache size, etc. We won’t go into this in detail for now. RAM sticks As is clear from the name, these strips are responsible for the amount of RAM on the computer. The more sticks and the larger they are, the more RAM the computer has. The main characteristic of RAM sticks is the frequency range at which they can operate. The size of each RAM stick is also taken into account. It is recommended to always install RAM sticks of the same size and from the same manufacturer in your computer, in order to avoid various system conflicts. The brackets are installed in special slots on the motherboard. Video card An integral part of any computer. Responsible for displaying images on the user's monitor. Responsible for the quality of computer graphics and the performance of 3D applications in general. There are both external video cards and internal ones, built into the motherboard or processor. However, on most home PCs the video card is external. A modern external video card differs from its ancestors in a large number of coolers and a massive radiator grille. All this is needed to improve the cooling of the card and, as a result, increase its performance. The main parameters of a video card are the amount of its video memory and the frequency range at which the video card operates. Hard disks There may be several of them or there may be only one hard drive. There must be at least one so that you can install some operating system on it. In the picture above you can see an example of one of the modern HDDs, which is connected to the motherboard using a SATA cable. The main parameters of a hard drive are the speed of reading and writing data. I have already written about how they are measured. CD/DVD/Bluray drives Needed to read and write files to disk. They are gradually becoming obsolete, as low-volume CDs and DVDs are being replaced by fast and large flash drives and external hard drives, which are connected to the system unit via USB cables. The disk drive is not a mandatory element of the system unit. The computer will be able to work quite calmly without it. But without a disk drive it will not be possible to work with CDs, DVDs and Bluray discs. The main parameters of any drive are the speed of reading and writing from the disk and the speed of writing/burning data to the disk. power unit It is needed in order to properly distribute electricity from your home network between all components of the system unit. The wires from the power supply go to power the motherboard, coolers, external video card and hard drives. The processor and RAM are powered by the motherboard. In addition, the motherboard regulates the voltage supply to the processor and RAM to increase or decrease performance. Other boards Quite often, many system units contain additional boards. These can be external network cards, sound cards, TV tuners, GPS beacons, etc. The whole thing is connected to the motherboard using PCI connectors. In the picture above you can see an example of an external Wi-Fi network card. It has become very popular recently due to the widespread use of home Wi-Fi networks. It is an ideal solution when you want to connect a stationary PC to the Internet, but there is no desire to run a twisted pair cable from the system unit to the router. Assembled system unit When assembled, the system unit will look something like this. In the upper right corner we see the power supply. We see how cables branch off from it to disk drives, to hard drives, to the motherboard and coolers. Exactly what I wrote to you about. In the lower left corner we see three hard drives, and above them a basket with drives. In the center is the largest motherboard. It has an impressively sized cooler located above the processor and underneath the whole thing is some kind of video card. That's basically all I wanted to tell you about today. I hope that the internal structure of the system unit is no longer a mystery to you. In any case, this information will be useful to you when in the following articles we learn how to choose components for a budget and assemble a computer system unit yourself. Hello dear visitors of the blog site. Today we’ll talk about computer devices, or as they usually say, “hardware” that can be found in the computer system unit. This way you will understand what a computer is made of. The hardware of a computer, or as it is fashionable to say “hardware,” remains a mystery even to many experienced users. In this article I’ll tell you about hardware devices, thereby filling the gap, of course, if you have one, and if you are familiar with them, then we’ll refresh your memory a little. First of all, let’s divide what is commonly called a “computer” into two groups:
System unit deviceThe system unit is the main device of the computer. Only by looking inside the computer can we figure out what the computer is made of.
Points 1 to 5 are mandatory; you will find them in any system unit. The rest may not exist or they may be in the form of peripheral devices, that is, connected externally. What does computer consist of:
power unitThis computer device is an important component in the computer! The abbreviated name is BP. The main characteristic is the maximum output power. It is measured in Watts (W), in English Watt (W). For a home computer, the power supply is usually 350-450 W, for a powerful gaming computer it is 600 W or more. The importance of this component is often underestimated. When buying a computer, you may be offered to save money by installing a lower-quality power supply. This is highly not recommended, since the power supply is the source of energy for all other components of the system. If a low-quality power supply breaks down or has some problem in the electrical network, it can damage other components of the system. In addition, cheap and low-quality models often indicate power values that are far from reality. That is why the computer power supply must be from a trusted manufacturer and have sufficient power.
Name options: motherboard, mother, main board, MotherBoard, MainBoard. It is to the motherboard that all devices located inside the system unit are connected. It is the main board in the system. Let's take a closer look at its contents:
The required components of the motherboard are listed above; they are also united by the fact that they are visible only from inside the system unit. If you look at the back of the system unit, you can see many connectors that are also physically located on the motherboard. They are located on the left side, approximately in the middle and are enclosed in a metal “frame”. Please note that your computer may not have many of them, it depends on the specific motherboard model.
Now I propose to clarify one important point. If any connector is located in a vertical “frame” in the middle of the system unit, then the device to which it belongs is built into your motherboard. If you have a discrete video card, modem or anything else, then it is connected to the motherboard through an expansion slot and the connector of the device itself will be located below horizontally.
Central processing unit (CPU), in English CPU (Central processing unit). This is a chip that executes software commands, performs calculations, performs logical comparison operations, and roughly speaking, “thinks.” Therefore, the processor is often called the “brain” of the computer. The main characteristics of the device are: bit capacity, clock frequency, power consumption, number of cores, architecture. Bit capacity indicates the amount of information transmitted per unit of time over the data bus. Available in 8, 16, 32 and 64 bits. Accordingly, the higher the bit depth, the faster the processor runs. Clock frequency shows how many clock cycles (elementary operations) the CPU performs per unit of time. Power consumption indicates how much heat the processor generates when running. Some time ago, the two main processor manufacturers - Intel and AMD - in their competition, tried to increase the clock speed of their processors as much as possible. But we were faced with the fact that after overcoming a certain threshold, energy consumption and heat transfer begin to increase nonlinearly. The solution was multi-core processors. This means that one CPU contains several crystals that distribute the computing load among themselves. The most widely used devices now are 2-core devices, although this is not the limit; there are processors with 4 or more cores. The architecture shows how work is organized inside the processor. Although this parameter does not add the desired gigahertz, it can have a very significant impact on performance. Intelligent organization of work, as we know, costs a lot.
RAMRAM is a random access memory (RAM), in English – RAM (Random Access Memory). This memory area is volatile, that is, without “power” the data is not saved in it. The RAM stores information that must be processed by the processor in real time. During operation, RAM contains data from the operating system and running user programs. Today, RAM modules of the SDRAM DDR3 standard are relevant; before them there were SDRAM DDR 2 and SDRAM DDR 1 (of course, they can still be found). Each new generation had a number of serious advantages over its predecessors: throughput increased, energy consumption decreased.
HDDA hard disk drive, or HDD (Hard Disk Drive) in English, is a read-only memory device (ROM). This computer device is also called a hard drive or hard drive. This type of memory is not non-volatile, that is, data is retained in memory after the power is turned off. It is this computer device that contains all the user data: movies, music, documents and everything else. The hard drive consists of several round plates that rotate on a spindle. These plates are coated with a ferromagnetic material, divided into many cells, each of which stores one bit of binary information. A special head reads and writes information, which moves to the desired location above the surface of the disk. They differ in the amount of stored information, connection method, form factor, and spindle speed. As mentioned earlier, there are two types of connection method: IDE and SATA. The first one is almost never used anymore, since serial SATA is faster and more convenient. According to the form factor, HDDs come in 5.25 (discontinued production); 3.5, 2.5 inch, 1.8 inch, 1.3 inch, 1 inch and 0.85 inch are the sizes of the plates that contain the information. Desktop PCs usually use 3.5 HDDs, laptops 2.5. The faster the rotation speed, the higher the speed of writing and reading data. In 3.5 models, the speed is usually 7200 rpm, in 2.5 - 5400 rpm, although there are also faster models of hard drives for laptops.
Floppy disk driveA floppy disk drive, in English FDD (Floppy Disk Driver), is also called Floppy or simply floppy. This is a floppy disk reader. Roughly speaking, a floppy disk is a miniature hard drive, only instead of metal plates there is a flexible film base, and the head and drive motor are located in the disk drive. The size of floppy disks is 3.5 inches (5.25 inch floppy disks have been used for a long time). The floppy disk capacity is 1.44 MB. Floppy disks, in addition to their small volume, have a serious drawback - they are very unreliable, the information on them may become unreadable due to exposure to magnetic fields or shock. Because of this, this type of media is almost never used today.
Optical driveOptical media are plastic discs coated with a special layer. The disk is illuminated by a laser, and information is read from the reflected light. Optical discs come in several types: CD (Compact Disk), DVD (Digital Versatile Disc - digital multi-purpose disc), Blu-ray Disc (from English Blue Ray - blue ray). CD and DVD discs come in three types: ROM (Read Only Memory – read only), R (Recordable – writable), RW (Re-Writable – rewritable). Drives (disk drives) for reading optical discs are called the same as media. Moreover, the drive is called by the abbreviation of the last generation in line that it is capable of reading. That is, a DVD-ROM drive reads DVDs and CDs, but a CD drive only reads CDs. Also, drives are divided into those that can only read (CD/DVD ROM) and drives that can read and write discs (CD/DVD RAM). CD capacity 700 MB. DVD discs can be single-layer, double-layer and double-sided, the volume of regular is 4.7 GB, double-layer 8.5 GB, double-sided 9.4 GB, double-sided double-layer 17.08 GB (the latter is rare). Blu-ray Disc can store 25 GB, double layer 50 GB.
So, we have just looked at the main components that make up a computer. But we must not forget about devices that are not always included in the computer. Additional devices (peripherals)Additional devices can be devices that are inserted into the motherboard. A discrete one (on a separate board) can be a video adapter, sound adapter, network adapter, wi-fi, modem, USB controller and many other devices. I hope this article has fully explained to you what a computer consists of. And after reading it, the world of hadware (that’s what computer hardware is called) will become a little closer and clearer to my readers.
The previous article discussed the main ones. If you have not read it, I recommend that you read it before reading this article. Today we will climb into the “holy of holies”: system unit or " systems specialist"in everyday life. To make it clearer, I disassembled my own system unit and took photographs, which I will provide to you as a visual aid, let’s say, system unit device in pictures. Let's start with internal structure of the system unit, and then let's move on to the outside. Let's get started! To begin with, it is worth mentioning that the system unit can be horizontal in shape (called Desktop), which is usually located under the monitor, or vertical, which is called Tower. The Tower case, depending on the size, can be large, midi and mini. The most common case is the mini tower, which you can see in the photographs. By the way, you can familiarize yourself with the structure of the system unit of your personal computer, but you need to be very, very careful and first completely turn off the power to the computer, and only then start doing something. It is advisable to disconnect all the wires, but if you have problems connecting them, it is better not to. We will talk about connecting devices to the system unit in a series of articles, having dealt with. If you need to remove the system unit from under a table, for example, then this must be done very carefully, avoiding shocks and impacts. To see what is in the system unit, I need to remove the side cover by unscrewing 2 screws on the back wall, but the design of the case can be very diverse. The main thing is to carefully examine the case and understand where the cover is attached. It should come off without much effort, so don’t be overzealous. So, the cover has been removed, let's figure out what's needed for what.
Let's start with motherboard, which is also called maternal, and sometimes even affectionately “mother”. And no wonder: she is the largest and (as befits a mother) monitors the horde of other devices and coordinates their work, transmitting a signal from one to another. It’s not difficult to find; the motherboard, as I said, is large. In the photo it is highlighted with a green frame and marked with a number (1) in the corner. Under the number (2) the processor is hidden in the system unit. He is really hiding, because in the photo he is not visible at all. However, it looks like this:
CPU is a specially grown silicon stone, which, moreover, contains an incredible number of other elements: transistors that are connected to each other. The processor is a kind of “brain”, because it processes incoming information. One of its most important characteristics is the clock frequency, which represents the number of the simplest (elementary) operations it can perform per unit of time (second). It is measured in MHz (megahertz - that is, millions of hertz) or GHz (gigahertz - billions of hertz). Quite a lot, isn't it? Usually you can see these numbers in the description of the configuration of the purchased computer or in the sale advertisement. For example, 3000 MHz. The most common processors are Intel and AMD brands. The processor heats up during operation, so install radiator, which removes all this heat, and is also installed on top cooler- This is a small fan that circulates air and cools the radiator. This is exactly what you see under the number (2), and the radiator is visible underneath it. Let's look again at a larger photo:
The computer operates with information, so it must be stored somewhere. Let's draw an analogy with a person: there are things that we need only during work, for example, a formula. We don’t have to remember it, and it’s impossible to keep everything in our heads, so it’s written down somewhere in a book or notebook. It’s the same with a computer: it stores all the data on drives, and when some data is needed for work and needs to be used, it loads it into RAM(RAM – random access memory). She is numbered (3) in the general photo. It loads because it’s faster to work with it, because this memory is very fast. When the computer is turned off, there is nothing in this memory, everything is erased, just like with us when we sleep - we cannot think at this time. And at this time, the information on the computer is located only on storage devices. Under the designations (7a) and (7b) and highlighted in yellow, just hard disks. Hard drive is also called hard drive, and in everyday life “screw” or “broom”. Data is stored on it even when the computer is turned off. They are characterized by many parameters, but you only need to keep in mind the volume, which shows how much data can be written there, and the access speed. However, it’s worth getting acquainted with the units of measurement of information in a separate article; let’s leave that out for now. Let's take a closer look at the hard drive from the inside.
We can also see the cables. Naturally, every device needs electricity, so each one comes with a power cable from a power supply, which will be discussed below. And you can also see such a wide cable; in the picture it is labeled “IDE cable”. Don’t be scared, you just need to know that there is an IDE hard drive and SATA, it depends on how they are connected to the motherboard, we won’t go into details, but the latter has a much narrower cable. Information is transmitted through this cable. Thus, we found out that there is RAM, into which data is loaded as needed when the computer is running from a drive where it is stored permanently. However, when the computer turns on, it needs commands, because its RAM is empty! Imagine waking up and your head is empty! To do this, the computer has a read-only memory (ROM). It contains basic programs that check the status of the system and its readiness for operation and make it possible to interact with the monitor, hard drive, keyboard, and floppy drive. All these programs form basic input/output system (BIOS – Basic Input Output System). When you turn on your computer, you immediately see the operation of this very basic system: these are those white letters and numbers on a black background. If you paid attention, even if the computer is turned off for a long time, the date and time remains correct. This happens thanks to another microcircuit CMOS, in which this data and data about the computer hardware are stored, the chip willingly transfers this data to the BIOS on demand, after which the computer boots. The motherboard has battery, thanks to which data is not lost in CMOS. It lasts for a couple of years, sometimes you have to change it.
In this picture you can just see 2 sticks of RAM and a free slot for another one. The bar is simply inserted there and clamped on the sides with holders. You can see them in the picture, they are white, and in the general photo they are numbered (3). On the left, under the lower RAM strip, there is just a processor radiator and part of the cooler is visible above it. Let's look further at what's interesting inside the system unit of a personal computer. In the next photo you can see this battery, thanks to which time runs on the computer even if it is turned off. The photo shows connectors into which you can insert other useful devices.
For example, at the top of this photo you see the network card. In the general photo she is numbered (5). It is needed so that several computers can be connected together so that they can exchange information with each other. Below you see video card (video adapter), she is numbered (4) in the general photo. It is needed in order to form and display an image on the monitor.
Of course, there may not be such a bar, the video card may be built into the motherboard, but if you need a much higher quality image, if you need to be able to play modern games, then of course the capabilities of the built-in video card are not enough. The video card has its own memory, similar to RAM. And also powerful video cards have their own radiator and cooler, because these hard workers also heat up a lot. One of these free slots could also be used to install sound card, however, I have it built into the motherboard. Sound engineers and music lovers, and anyone who loves high-quality sound, will certainly purchase such a card. You should not ignore such an important device as power unit. Number (6) on the general diagram and right in front of you in the next photo.
This massive fellow is responsible for distributing energy between all devices. The power supply, of course, must be stable and the unit powerful. I have 300 watts, but the computer is quite old. Now there is more power, because so are the needs. The system unit even has its own cooler. We will see it in the next article, where we will look at the “exterior” of the system unit. |
.png)
Now let's tell you in more detail about each component.
Popular:
New
- Inserting a frame. Creating frames. Providing a noframes fallback
- Windows System Restore Never-ending automatic recovery preparation
- Repairing a flash drive using programs How to repair a USB port on a laptop
- The disk structure is damaged; reading is impossible, what should I do?
- What is hard drive cache memory and why is it needed? What is the cache size responsible for?
- What does computer consist of?
- The structure of the system unit - which components are responsible for the operation of the computer Features of the system unit internal devices
- How to change a hard drive to an SSD
- Input devices include
- Typed Programming Language What to do with all these variable types
