Motherboard: Circuit Board Chassis CPU RAM Hardware

Motherboard
Updated: 02/01/2021 by Computer Hope
Alternatively called
the mb, mainboard, mboard, mobo, mobd, backplane
board, base board, main circuit board, planar board, system
board, or a logic board on Apple computers.
The motherboard is a printed circuit board and foundation of a
computer that is the biggest board in a computer chassis. It
allocates power and allows communication to and between
the CPU (central processing unit), RAM (random-access
memory), and all other computer hardware components
A motherboard provides the electrical connections by which the

other components of the system communicate. Unlike a
backplane, it also contains the central processing unit and hosts
other subsystems and devices.
A typical desktop computer has its microprocessor, main
memory, and other essential components connected to 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; in modern microcomputers, 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.
Bus
Updated: 07/31/2022 by Computer Hope
Alternatively known as an address bus, data bus, control bus,
or local bus, a bus is a link between components or devices
connected to a computer. For example, a bus carries data
between a CPU and the system memory via the motherboard
Why is a computer bus called a bus?
You can think of a computer bus like public transportation or a
school bus. These types of buses are capable of transporting
people from one destination to another destination. Like these
buses, a computer bus transmits data from one location or device
to another location or device.
A computer bus maintains a strict schedule, "picking up" data
and "dropping it off" at a regular interval. For example, if a bus
operates at a frequency of 200 MHz, it completes 200 million
data transfers per second. This speed is called the bus width.
Computer bus overview

The bus contains multiple wires (signal lines) with addressing
information describing the memory location of where the data is
sent or retrieved. Each wire in the bus carries one or more bits of
information, which means the more wires a bus has, the more
information it can address. For example, a computer with a 32-
bit address bus can address 4 GB of memory, and a computer
with a 36-bit bus can address 64 GB of memory.
The illustration below shows the different types of computer
buses and how they connect devices on the motherboard.
Types of computer buses
A bus is either a parallel or serial bus, and either an internal
bus (local bus) or an external bus (expansion bus).
Internal bus vs. external bus
An internal bus enables the communication
between internal components, such as a video card and memory.
An external bus can communicating with external peripherals,
such as a USB or SCSI device.
Parallel bus vs. serial bus
A computer bus can transmit its data using either a parallel or
serial method of communication. With a parallel bus, data is
transmitted several bits at a time.
However, with a serial bus, the data is transferred one bit at a
time.
Address bus vs. data bus vs. control bus
With computer memory, a computer address bus is the bus
containing the memory location (memory address) of where data
is located in the computer memory. Once the computer
understands where to get the information, the data bus is used to
transfer that data. The control bus communicates with the
computer's devices, sending commands and receiving status
signals.
Bus speeds
A computer or device's bus speed is measured in MHz, e.g.,
an FSB may operate at a frequency of 100 MHz.
The throughput of a bus is measured in bits per
second or megabytes per second.
Examples of computer buses
A-F G-N O-P
AGP HyperTransport PATA

ATA IDE PC Card
Back-side bus ISA PCI
BSB MCA PCIe
EISA NuBus PCMCIA
eSATA
ExpressCard
FireWire
Front side bus
FSB
Most popular computer buses
Today, many of the buses listed above are no longer used or are
not as common. Below is a listing of the most common buses
and how they are used with a computer.
• eSATA and SATA - Computer hard drives and disc drives.
• PCIe - Computer expansion cards and video cards.
• USB - Computer peripherals.
• Thunderbolt- Peripherals connected through a USB-
C cable.

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Motherboard

Updated: 02/01/2021 by Computer Hope

A motherboard provides the electrical connections by which the

Computer bus overview

A-F G-N O-P

AGP HyperTransport PATA

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