Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The motherboard's capabilities are determined by its
chipset
. The
chipset contains the controllers that direct the traffic along the mother-
board's buses, specify which memory and CPUs the motherboard can
accept, and route data to expansion slots and ports as needed.
chipset
The controller chip on a circuit board.
The
form factor
of the motherboard is its physical size and shape. It is
significant because the motherboard must be able to physically fit into
the system unit case.
form factor
The size and shape of a circuit
board, such as a motherboard.
Expansion Slots
Expansion slots
are plastic slots on the motherboard. Inside the slots are
metal contacts that connect with metal contacts on smaller circuit boards
called
expansion cards
that fit into them. You can buy many different
expansion devices, adding capabilities that might not be built into the
motherboard, or adding a more feature-rich version of a built-in device.
For example, you might add a Wi-Fi adapter to a desktop PC with an
expansion card, or a dial-up modem, or you might replace the on-board
display adapter built into your motherboard with a model that has a
faster graphics processor.
expansion slot
A slot in the motherboard into
which an expansion card (a small circuit board)
can be installed.
expansion card
A small circuit board that fits
into a slot on the motherboard to add functionality.
Different motherboards have different numbers and types of slots. Each
slot type has its own separate bus, delivering its own combination of
width and speed.
Peripheral Component Interface (PCI)
A motherboard slot that accepts PCI expansion
boards. PCI is considered a legacy interface
(mostly obsolete).
A typical motherboard might have three or more expansion slots: con-
ventional
Peripheral Component Interface (PCI)
slots (an older type
of slot, for backward compatibility with older devices) and several newer
PCI Express (PCIe)
slots. Figure 2.5 shows some slots in a mother-
board; this one has one x1, one x4, and two x16 slots (which are all dif-
ferent sizes of PCIe slots), as well as one regular PCI slot.
PCI Express (PCIe)
A new and updated
version of the PCI motherboard slot. Different
numbers of channels are used in different sized
PCIe slots, such as 16, 4, or 1.
Notebook PCs are more likely than desktops to have a wide variety of
built-in components, so there is less need for expansion slots. Because
there's not much room for them internally, There might be an exter-
nally accessible expansion slot called an
ExpressCard
(or PC Card or
CardBus) slot. ExpressCards are small circuit boards encased in a metal
cartridge.
ExpressCard
A metal cartridge inserted into an
externally accessible slot in a notebook PC that
adds a capability to the system, such as wireless
networking.
There also might be a removable panel on a notebook PC with a
PCI
Express Mini Card
socket, into which you can install a small expansion
board that uses the motherboard's internal PCIe bus. One common use
for this type of socket is to add a Wi-Fi adapter. Figure 2.6 shows a PCI
Express Mini Card and its connector.
PCI Express Mini Card
A small circuit board
that can be installed in a notebook PC's PCI
Express Mini expansion bay to add a capability to
the computer, such as wireless networking.
