The motherboard, which is the first and most important part of the mixed electronic period called a computer, is a printed circuit board. Consisting of a square-shaped plate, the motherboard features expansion card slots, chipsets, circuits and Ram slots. Even if a computer is the first to come to mind when it comes to motherboards, many electronic devices, from television to mobile phones, have a motherboard on the circuits. Almost all of these motherboards perform the same task. The main reason for people to think of a computer immediately when it comes to the motherboard is probably the general usage area.
The motherboard is a skeleton hardware consisting of electronic circuits that connect all the parts and hardware inside or outside the computer and enable them to work in a coordinated manner by communicating with each other. On the motherboard, there are also card processors known as chipset, which are included with external processors, which significantly affect computer performance.
In addition, thanks to the ports on the motherboard, it provides the relationship with the external environment by adapting the external hardware that provides images, sound and data to the computer. By opening a small parenthesis, it is also necessary to touch on the graphics cards defined as onboard. Onboard graphics cards provide lower performance than integrated graphics processors of sound, display and ethernet cards integrated in one piece with the motherboard. This type of video cards, which will never replace external graphics cards, are preferred by non-game users for daily use
How the Motherboard Works?
With the release of Pentium processors, motherboards have undergone major changes. The primary task of the motherboards is to gather all these external and internal connections in one place, and to work together in harmony, by means of chipset processors, also known as motherboard processors, on different hardware and peripherals attached to the computer. The reason for this is that hardware and functional parts cannot communicate directly with each other. As an example, while data processed on a hard disk is processed through the processor or data on the processor is processed on the screen or sound card, that is, when it is converted into sound or image, data transfer is made thanks to these integrated systems on the motherboard.
What does the motherboard do?
In addition to all port parts, an integrated system called BIOS is used, which determines the features and working settings of the board it carries on the motherboard and allows all of these to be set up via computer. Apart from that, many internal and external devices with different tasks allow the motherboard to work in harmony with other hardware by adhering to a certain order. In short, the stronger the motherboard of a computer, the higher the performance of the computer.
The motherboard was first used in IBM computers in 1982. In fact, motherboards, which have been used as circuit boards for years, have become a new technological product in itself with the advancement of technology. As such, many computer brands have competed with each other in this regard.
How To Install Motherboard?
Since the motherboard is the foundation of your computer, when you buy a new one, you need to disassemble all other parts to mount it on the computer. After replacing the motherboard, you replace all the removed parts. Replacing the motherboard takes no more than 10 minutes for qualified people. But before starting this process, make sure to back up your hard disk.
Turn off the computer. Remove the safe. Disconnect the computer cables and cards after discharging static electricity from your body. Remove the two multi-wire plugs from the power units to the motherboard. Take the new motherboard out of the box and insert the memory chips. Remove the fixing screws to remove the existing motherboard. Install the new motherboard and tighten the fixing screws. Attach wires such as illuminated indicator and switch to their place on the motherboard. Remember that if you plug the power plugs upside down, you will burn the motherboard. Place the cards and cables you removed to match the motherboard you just bought. After connecting the screen, keyboard and mouse, plug in the power cord and turn on the computer. If everything is fine after the BIOS test, close the case.
Motherboard Structure, Components, and Tasks
There are copper paths on the motherboards made of fiberglass material that does not conduct electricity. Although they have a very complex structure, their working principles are extremely simple. On a standard interface board; processor, sound card, ethernet card, video card, Ram slots, AGP slots, PCI slots, chipset (chipset), Bios and a few more hardware. In addition, PS / 2 connections that can be clicked with the keyboard and mouse are also placed on the motherboard.
Chipset
Chipset, also known as chipset, provides communication within the computer. The faster the communication between the components takes place, the better the computer's performance. These percent chipsets play a big role on the performance of the computer. The most widely used chipsets today are manufactured by Intel. Silicon Integrated Systems (SIS), VIA, Acer Labs Inc. Some companies such as (ALI) also develop and launch quality chipsets.
Bus
While the components on the motherboard communicate via chipsets, the paths used for this action are called data buses. So the busses you will understand are the bridges between the components. For example, we can compare chipsets to landline phones and data paths to telephone cables. Just like when communicating over the phone, the communication is provided by cables, and the chipsets also provide communication between the components using the data paths.
The busses are divided into two as standard and address. While standard buses transfer data about actions performed on the computer, address busses determine where the data will be sent. Each part of the computer has a certain capacity as well as the data paths. This capacity expresses how much data a bus can transfer at one time. For example, 16 bits of data can be streamed at one time via 16 bits of data, and 32 bits of data can be streamed at a time through 32 bits of data. The capacity of the bus also plays an important role on the performance of the computer. The bus that connects only two hardware is called a port. AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) is an example of the port.
The busses used in computers today are ISA, PCI and AGP.
ISA (Industry Standard Architecture): ISA, which can work up to 16 bits wide and 8 Mhz speed, was developed in 1984. ISA buses are often used on Sound Blaster compatible sound cards that do not require fast data streaming.
AGP (Advanced Graphics Port): 32 bit wide and 66 Mhz speed, AGP was developed in the last quarter of 1997. As a result of the progress in graphic applications, the bus capacity of AGP, which was developed for use only in graphics cards, is 266 mbps.
PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect): PCI developed by Intel in 1993, is a plug and play supported bus, 64 bits. However, it is usually used as 32 bits due to compatibility issues. The bus capacity is 133 mbps.