Computer Components UK Guide

By: Donny Mcclure

Computer Components UK Essential Guide.


Computer Components
Personal Computers are made up of various computer components assembled into a housing unit via different interface types, all computer components will connect to the motherboard. The name suggests that the motherboard is the main computer component which controls the data signals between all the electrical device.

Common computer components include:
1. Motherboard
2. Central Processing Unit (CPU)
3. Random Access Memory (RAM)
4. Expansion card
5. Power supply (PSU)
6. Optical Drive
7. Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

PC Case or Chassis.
PC's come in various sizes, shapes and colour, but the common personal computer usually consists of a housing unit in a tower configuration or in a desktop configuration which sits flat on a desk allowing for a LCD to be mounted on top.


All personal computers will have all or most of the following computer components:


Motherboard

The motherboard is the main computer component and is typically the first component to be fitted into the case. The following is a list of computer components which directly connect to the motherboard:

CPU (Central Processing Unit)
Central Processing Unit (CPU) carries out most of the calculations that control the main function of the personal computer. The CPU is installed with a large heat sink with fan to help keep things cool. This computer component is fitted directly onto the motherboard via a socket interface.

RAM (Random Access Memory)
Random Access Memory (RAM) contains all the running processes, such as: software, running documents and the running operating system. This computer component is usually fitted directly onto the motherboard via dimm slots.

BIOS (Basic In-put Out-put System)
The BIOS contains boot firmware and power management. The Basic Input Output System checks hardware and components at start-up and also allows for configuring correct settings for each computer component fitted. The BIOS is the place were most overclocking configurations are set and generally used by advanced pc users as little changes can have some major effect on system performance. fitted on motherboard before leaving the factory.

Internal Bus
Internal Buses are for connecting the central processing unit to all of the internal expansion cards, i.e. Wifi and expansion cards. This computer component is already fitted on the motherboard before it leaves the factory.

External Bus
External Bus Controllers are for connecting external peripherals like printers. These ports are controlled using the southbridge input/output chip or via expansion cards attached to the PCI bus, e.g. USB, FireWire, eSATA, SCSI. These computer components are usually fitted on the motherboard before it leaves the factory, but each motherboard will have different amount of these conection types. You can purchase additional External Bus Controlers if they are not installed on the motherboard. These computer components will usually connect via PCI slots on the motherboard.

Chipset
The chipset is the main controller on the motherboard, which passes data between each of the computer components. The Chipset is already fitted on the motherboard before leaving the factory


Power supply Unit (PSU)
The power supply unit (PSU) supplies the pc case components with the appropriate voltage to operate: heatsink fans, hard disk drives, central processing unit, GPU, CD Drives and the motherboard. The PSU changes alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) and has different electrical currents to accommodate each components power needs..


Video display controller
The Video Controller processes data to be displayed on screen. Video adapters are either fitted on the motherboard (built-in) or connected via one of the expansion slots (PCI, PCI-E, PCI-E 2.0, or AGP), also known as a GFX Card.

There are many video cards available and they all cater for various graphical experiences. All Video cards will carry out the most basic of graphical requirements, but as games evolve and become more and more graphically intense, the need for faster video cards has created a mirage of super fast graphics cards which is still evolving today.

Removable media devices

CD - Compact Disc is the most common type of removable media, used for music and data storage and playback.

CD-ROM Drive - Optical Drive used for reading Compact Disk's.

CD Writer - Optical Drive used for writing data to and from a Compact Disk.

DVD - Digital versatile disc's a similar to compact disk except DVD's can store up to 12 times as much data. DVD's are very popular way of recording and playback of digital video, and for data storage.

DVD-ROM Drive - an optical drive used for reading DVD's.

DVD Writer - an optical drive used for both reading and writing data to and from a DVD.

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 for data and HD video playback.
Storage is as much as 70 times that of compact disks.

BD-ROM Drive - an optical drive for reading data in Blu-ray format.

BD Writer - an optical drive to read and write data in Blu-ray format.

HD DVD - Similar to Blu-ray format, but has now discontinued.

Floppy disk - a storage device made of flexible magnetic storage medium. An outdated pc case component which is still used today.

Iomega Zip drive - Similar to Floppy Disks, but holds more data.

USB flash drive - USB flash drives are usually small, light, removable, and rewritable. There are various storage volumes available with flash drives from 16mb all the way up to Blu-ray storage capacities and beyond. USB Flash drives are fast, reliable and very cost effective portable storage media.

Tape drive - Writes large amounts of data to magnetic tapes, used mainly in the corporate world for long term storage of system backups.

Internal storage
Hardware data storage devices are an integral computer component that stores data for later use. Data stored is none volatile, so when the power is switched off there is no data loss.

Hard disk Drive (HDD) - Very large internal storage, used for long to mid term storage. Hard Disk Drives have mechanical parts which may become faulty with use.

Solid-state drive (SSD) - Similar to hard disk drives apart from containing no mechanical parts and stores data in a digital format. These storage devices are relatively new and as a result they are rather expensive. SSD's offer a more reliable option to Hard Disk. As SSD technology advances, data transfer should increase drastically. At the moment most SSD's offer only slight performance increases over the native Hard Disk Drive.

RAID array controller - RAID array is a collection of hard disk drives configured and controlled by the RAID Array Controller. By connecting hard disk drives in various RAID formats, you can achieve higher performance or improved reliability or both, depending on which RAID array you configure. RAID Arrays are either an internal computer component or and external computer components.


Sound card
The Sound Card allows the pesonal computer to output sound via audio devices and also accept input from an external audio source. Sound cards are a typical computer component which usually come fitted to the motherboard or as an expansion card. Typical features of sound cards are 5.1 surround, 7.1 digital surround. There are loads of sound cards on the market, ranging from entry level stereo playback to full music reproduction capabilities.

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Author: Donny Mcclure

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