Computer Systems Computer Hardware

What makes a computer (The Basics)

Cases

• A computer case is what holds majority of all computer components. • The computer cases are normally built from steel or aluminum. • Protect hardware from electro static discharge ESD damage. • They come in different sizes • The size of the case is always determined by the motherboard as this is the largest computer component

Power Supply Unit (PSU)

• Supplies power to all the other computer components. • Converts the AC to DC • Most PSU’s come with the ATX form factor which was designed to make system components more interchangeable. • Can change the voltage level to 110v/115v or 220v/230v, if the wrong level is set this will damage the PSU and other computer components in the computer • Comes in different wattage outputs, greater the wattage, the more components it can power

Central processing Unit (CPU)

• The CPU is the component that reads and executes the instructions from the program of a computer. • The CPU is refereed too as the“brain” of the computer as this does all the thinking and calculations. • The CPU understands one language “Binary” • The CPU is split into two components called ALU & CU • The ALU performs arithmetic and logical operations • The CU gets instructions and executes them using the ALU when necessary. • • A 2.6Ghz CPU can carry out 2.6 Billion Instructions per clock cycle.

Motherboard

• The motherboard or the main board is the main circuit board of a computer. • Provides a meeting place for other hardware components to connect and communicate. with each other • The motherboard has many chips including the BIOS and CMOS. • Divided into the northbridge and southbridge • The northbridge is directly connected to the CPU and is responsible for the RAM and graphics. • The southbridge is responsible for power management, PCI buses, SATA/USB/LAN, graphics card etc.

Hard Drive

• Stores user data and user software • Commonly has an operating system and other software and settings installed.

• non-volatile piece of hardware which is made up of many rigid platters to store data. • Connection method is using a SATA or IDE Cable( IDE Redundant) • Hard drives can be easily damaged as they are Electromagnetic and are susceptible to static shocks.

• Measured in RPM (Rotation Per Minute)Higher the speed, the faster the drive

Solid State Hard drive

• Faster than normal hard drives • Uses NAND Technology (Flash) • No moving components • Shock resistant • More expensive than standard hard drives • Made up of memory blocks, which degrades over time

Random Access Memory (RAM)

• • • RAM is volatile memory Faster the RAM the quicker a program can load. The more RAM in a computer, the more programs a computer can have open at anyone time.

• Static and Dynamic • Dynamic RAM (DRAM) needs to be refreshed thousands of times • Static (SRAM)does not need to refresh as much making it faster. • DRAM is the most common used RAM as SRAM is very expensive.