What is a Motherboard? - Types, Parts Name & Functions

Motherboard is the main parts of the computer system. All wires or devices of computer system are connected with motherboard. Each type of motherboards is designed to work with special types of processors and memory.

                

              So they are not able to work with every processor and type of memory. However, below we will know about what is a motherboard?, what is a motherboard in computer?, types of motherboard, functions of motherboard and motherboard parts name. Coming in main point i.e. what is motherboard? or what is motherboard in computer?

What is a motherboard?

A motherboard is the main circuit board in a computer that associates the various parts of a computer together.

        It has attachments for the CPU, RAM and more things; it additionally connects to hard drives, disc drives and front panel ports with cable and wires.

It may also called brain of the computer.

Computer Motherboard

Types of Motherboard:-

1. AT Motherboard

2. ATX Motherboard

2.1 Micro-ATX Motherboard

2.2 Mini ITX Motherboard

2.3 E-ATX Motherboard

  

1. AT Motherboard

                   AT Motherboard oldest of the main boards, these motherboards were first used in 286/386 or 486 computers. AT means the board has advanced technology (AT) power connectors. Each mount on a 6 motherboard has two 6-pin power connectors. AT motherboards was invented in the early 80s.

2. ATX Motherboard

                   The ATX motherboard invented in the 90s and is still available. The ATX connector on the motherboard has a single connector. These boards are used for P2 / P3 or P / 4 processors.

ATX Motherboard stands for Advanced Technology extended Motherboard Configuration Specification which was developed in the mid-90s and is still available.

The ATX motherboard is an improvement from already working motherboards such as AT. ATX is the most common motherboard design used on smaller boards (including Micro-ATX, Flex-atx, Nano-ITX, Mini-ITX).

A full-size standard ATX motherboard has dimensions of 12 x 9.6 inches. The ATX motherboard has gone through a lot of upgrades in recent times.

Modern ATX motherboards have several advantages over their predecessors.

Some features and uses of modern ATX motherboards are as follows

•     More power phase for cleaner and more stable power.

•      More clearance around CPU sockets to accommodate those huge after-market heat sinks.

•      Gaps in between expansion slots for better graphics card cooling.

All of the above factors add to better over clocking results. And don't forget the huge ATX mid-tower and full-tower cases with enough room for fans of half a dozen cases, water-cooled setups, tall (CPU and RAM) heat sinks and all that other stuff.

2.1 Micro-ATX Motherboard

                  Micro-ATX Motherboard is smaller than typical ATX motherboards with dimensions of 9.6x 9.6 inches. Some constructions have dimensions of 9.6 x 8.1 inches.

Most modern ATX motherboards have a maximum of seven PCI or PCI-Express expansion slots, while a micro-ATX board has a maximum of four.

Micro-ATX motherboards have many advantages over ATX motherboards and are given below

•    It is compact and smaller than the ATX motherboard which sports more ports and slots than the ATX.

•     Budget motherboard compared to other ATX or ITX motherboards

2.2 Mini ITX Motherboard

                    The Mini ITX Motherboard is 6.7 x 6.7 inches in dimensions which is smaller than any other traditional motherboard.

Some features and advantages of Mini ITX motherboard are following bellow

•         Small size and fan-less cooling which enables it to consume less power.

•         Mini ITX boards can be used in any case designed for ATX, Micro-ATX and other ATX variants.

2.3 E-ATX Motherboard

      The E-ATX Motherboard is expanded from the ATX motherboard and is much larger than the ATX motherboard, but with the size it has a lot of information and uses that other specific motherboards are lagging behind. E-ATX Motherboard is mainly used for gaming. This motherboard can be stores more memory and more CPU cores.

E-ATX Motherboard has some features and advantages, which is given below.

•         There are many PCI slots and DIMM slots

•         Maximum 128 GB RAM can be installed in this motherboard

•        These have Wi-Fi, sound cards, onboard troubleshooting features and competitive VRMs

These are the types of motherboards that are traditionally used and have many features;

Above I have mentioned some basic knowledge or idea about Motherboard components and its uses in the following pages.

Motherboard Parts

  

Motherboard Parts Name:-

There are below mentioned some important Motherboard Parts Name, Such as

Mouse & keyboard:

There are two types of connectors. The first type is called PS / 2 and the second is USB. One is connected with Keyboard and second is connected with Mouse.

  

Parallel Port:

Older printers are used to connect via parallel ports. Parallel ports use more than one wire to send or receive multiple bit data at once, while the serial port uses only one wire. Parallel ports use a 25-pins DB connector.

  

USB (Universal serial bus):

USB stands for universal serial bus. It is used for connection to computer. There are many devices that are used to connect USB ports such as mouse, keyboard, scanner, camera and printer.

   Even a printer USB connector is used to connect a computer motherboard and a peripheral device. You can insert or remove peripheral devices via USB connector without restarting your computer.

  

CPU (Central Processing Unit) Chip:

CPU Stand for Central Processing Unit, CPU refers to a processor. And it is also known as a microprocessor, performing all the tasks that occur inside a computer system.

This is main parts of the motherboard, and it is also called hearts of a motherboard or computer.

  

ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) Slot:

ISA, it is also known as Industry Standard Architecture, It is the standard bus (computer interconnection) architecture of the Expansion slot card. Its connect modem and input devices.

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) Slot:

AGP stands for Accelerated Graphics Port. It is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching video cards to a computer system, if you have a modern motherboard, you will definitely see a single connector that connects to the PCI slot.

CMOS Battery:

CMOS stands for Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductors. It used to store BIOS settings in computer motherboards. The CMOS battery also stores the date and time, which is running 24*7.

BIOS:

BIOS stand for Basic Input Output System. It is the component of motherboard which is in the form of an integrated chip. This chip contains all the information and settings of the motherboard that you can modify by entering BIOS mode from your system or computer.

SATA Connector:

SATA, this is also known as Serial Advanced Technology Attachment or Serial ATA. SATA is a computer bus interface that associates the host bus connectors to the mass stockpiling gadget.

     

For example, hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives.

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) is 7-pin connectors and is much faster than the IDE interface.

Power supply plug in:

The Power supply plug in is also playing main role in computer or system, the power supply provides the electrical power required to operate a computer system.

The power supply takes standard 110-V AC power and converts to +/- 12-volt, +/- 5-volt and 3.3-volt DC power. The connector of power supply has 20-pins.

CPU Slot:

CPU slot is also called Processor Socket; it makes the connection between motherboard and CPU.

RAM Slots:

RAM stand for Random Access Memory. The pronunciation of RAM is “ramm”. RAM slots are used for only attach RAM.

Some motherboard has one slot of RAM, some has more than one slots. RAM comes in different sizes i.e. Memory, which is in GB (gigabyte).

Floppy Controller:

The old motherboard has a floppy drive connected to the computer, which has a 34-pin ribbon cable, one end of the ribbon cable is connected to the floppy drive and the other is connected to the motherboard.

IDE Controller:

IDE is also known as Integrated Drive Electronics. IDE controller works for controlling the hard drive.

PCI Slot:

PCI stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect. It is hardware BUS. PCI is used to connect additional PCI devices such as network cards, sound cards, modems, video cards.

Functions of the Motherboard:-

The Functions of the Motherboard is as below.

•        The motherboard serves as the central backbone of a computer, on which other modular parts are installed such as CPU, RAM, and hard disk.

•        The motherboard also serves as the platform on which various expansion slots are available to install other devices / interfaces.

•        The motherboard is also responsible for distributing power to various components of the computer.

•        They are also used in coordination of different devices in computers and maintain an interface between them.

•        Some sizes in which motherboards are available are: BTX, ATX, Mini-ATX, Micro-ATX, LPX, NLX etc.