components

Components of a Computer

The following information is provided to make you more knowledgeable about the components and inner
workings of a computer. Please read your computer manual or consult with a certified computer
professional before trying to fix a problem with your computer.

Figure 1B

Figure 1B is a picture of a "coin" type
cmos (complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor) battery. Figure 1A
shows a view of it on the motherboard.

Figure 1A is an image of a motherboard.

Figure 2 is a close up view of a Pentium 4 CPU (Central Processing Unit).

<--ISA slot

<--ISA slot

<--ISA slot

<--PCI slot

<--PCI slot

<--PCI slot

<--PCI slot

Figure 4A is an image of a Pentium II CPU (Central Processing
Unit). This CPU became available in 1997. The operating speed
was between 233Mhz-450Mhz.

Figure 6 is a picture of what a stick
of RAM (random access memory)
for a desktop/tower computer would
generally look like. They come in
different sizes, typically 32MB,
64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, or
1024MB.

Figure 5 is an image of a Pentium II CPU inserted onto a motherboard shown in Figure 1A.

Figure
8

Figure 8 is an overhead view of a motherboard.

Figure 7 shows how to insert a stick of RAM into the proper slot on the
motherboard. RAM sticks are extremely sensitive and will be damaged if
you improperly touch them. Keep your fingers on the plastic edges of the
RAM stick to avoid ESD (electrostatic discharge). RAM sticks has a notch
on one side that prevents them from being installed improperly. Again, the
information provided here is just to make you more knowledgeable
with the workings of a typical computer. Please read your computer
manual or consult with a certified computer professional before you
try to fix a problem with your computer.

Figure 9A is a drawing of what a typical AGP (Accelerated
Graphics Port) would look like. This is where the Graphics
card (if applicable) would be inserted. Remember that the
Graphics card (if applicable) is one of the components
responsible for giving you the image you see on your monitor
screen. Some motherboards do not come with a Graphics
card, that's because the motherboard has whats called
integrated graphics (meaning the graphics card is built into
the motherboard. But the motherboard most likely, will still
has the AGP slot. If you look at Figure 1A and count from
left to right the five white slots (PCI); after the five PCI slot,
you will see the AGP slot (positioned vertically and
blackish-brown in color).

Figure 11A

Figure 11B

Figure 11B is a picture of a standard 9
pin (female) D connector located on the
end of the serial cable. Typically,
computers will have 1 or 2 serial ports
designated as COM1 and COM2.

Figure 11A is a picture of a parallel connector that is referred to as a
standard 25 pin (male) D connector located on one end of the parallel
cable. A standard printer cable is configured with a 36 pin connector on
the printer end and a 25 pin (male) D connector on the computer end of
the cable that plugs into the 25 pin D (female) connector on the
computer end.

Figure
13A

Figure 12A

Figure 12B

Figure 12B is a picture of a serial
cable. This cable is used to
connect a serial mouse or
keyboard to the computer.

Figure 12A is a picture of a parallel
printer cable. This cable is used to
connect a parallel printer to the
computer.

Figure 13A is a picture of
an IDE (Integrated Device
Electronics) cable that
connects an IDE device to
an IDE controller on the
motherboard.

Figure 13C

Figure 13C is a
picture of a mouse.
The mouse acts
like a pointing and
clicking device to
manipulate images
on the monitor
screen.

Figure 14B is a picture of the
front of a 3.5 inch floppy drive. It
uses the 3.5 inch disk shown in
Figure 15B to save data.

Figure 14A is a drawing of the back of a 3.5 inch floppy disk drive and the floppy disk drive
cable from Figure 13A that connects to the floppy disk drive controller on the motherboard.

Figure 15B

Figure 15A

Figure 15B is a drawing of two types of floppy
disks that are used to save data from a computer.
The 5.25 inch floppy has a disk capacity ranging
from 160 KB - 1.2MB. The 3.5 inch floppy has a
disk capacity ranging from 720 KB - 2.88 MB.

Figure 16B

Figure 16B is the inner
workings of a hard drive.

Figure 16A is a view of the back of a IDE hard-drive. The gray IDE data cable should be
plugged into the hard-drive with the red color stripe on the gray IDE cable facing toward the
power connector of the IDE hard-drive. The middle connector (16C)on the back of the
hard-drive is called the jumper setting area. This setting is determined by the number and/or
order in which you would like the computer to recognize your hard-drive(s) and/or cd-rom
drives(s).

Figure 17A is a view of the back of a cd -rom drive.

Figure 17B is a view of the front of a CD Burner.

Figure
18C

Figure 18B is a picture of a
power supply normally
connected to the motherboard
inside a computer .

Figure 18C is a picture of a
CRT (cathode-ray tube) monitor.

Figure 18A is a picture of a
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
monitor.

Figure 19B

Figure 19A and Figure 19B are a picture and drawing of the inner working process of a CRT
(cathode-ray tube) monitor, like the one in Figure 18C.

Back to Home Page

Figure 1C is a picture of the CPU cooling fan
that snaps onto the top of the CPU in Figure 2.
The purpose of the cooling fan is to keep the
CPU from overheating.

Figure 15A is a picture of a 5.25 inch
floppy drive. It uses the 5.25 inch disk
shown in Figure 15B to save data.

Figure 9B is a picture of an AGP
video card that would be inserted
into a AGP expansion slot as in
Figure 9A.

Figure 10

Figure 10 is an image of a USB
(universal serial bus) connector.
This type of connector is typically
used to interface devices that are
USB capable with the computer.

Figure 18A

Figure 19A

Figure 1A

Figure 2

Figure 3A

Figure 3A is an image of a motherboard with a CPU turned upside down
so you can see the pins in it. When the CPU is turned right side up, like
in Figure 2, the CPU can then be inserted in the white square area you
see in Figure 3D.

Figure 4A

Figure 5

Figure 7

Figure 9A

Figure 14A

Figure 16A

Figure 17A

To the Rescue

Figure 14B

Figure 17B

Figure 9B

Figure 1C

Figure 3B

Figure 3B is a picture of a ISA slot
(Industry Standard Architecture)
sound card. This is the hardware
that provides sound to your
computer speakers.

Figure 3C

Figure 3C is a picture of a
PCI (Peripheral Component
Interconnect) sound card
that would be inserted into
a PCI slot.

Figure 3D

Figure 4B

Figure 4B is a picture of a PCI
modem card. This is the
hardware that provides internet
access to individuals who have a
dial-up connection (dials a phone
number) to the internet.

Figure 13B

Figure 13B is a picture of a
keyboard. The keyboard functions like
a typewriter to enter data into the
computer.

Figure 18B

16C

Figure 6