The motherboard is the component that all other components attached to it communicates through. Consider this component to be the spine of the computer. Like the spine in a human it's used for sending all data traffic to and from every component attached to the motherboard, such as the CPU being the brain, RAM being short term memory, Hard Drives being the long term memory, the PSU being the heart and so on.
The way each component communicates is determined by the chipset, the North-bridge and the South-bridge. The North-bridge to put it simply communicates between the high speed components, such as the CPU, RAM and graphics. Whereas the South-bridge supports the communication between the slower components, such as expansion cards, storage, input output devices, etc. The North-bridge and the South-bridge are easily located on the motherboard - especially modern boards - because they usually have there own passive heat-sinks attached to the chips surface. The North-bridge is located in the centre of the Motherboard usually below the CPU and the South-bridge is further down just right of the expansion slots.
Desktop Motherboards come in two standard form factors that will fit into any standard ATX case. The first being ATX and then there's Micro ATX which is smaller in size and is limited in regards to expansion slots, such as PCI and PCI e.
Lets move on to all the different interfaces and what's connected to them.
Internal Interfaces
CPU Socket:
The CPU socket is where the CPU is inserted, there are two forms of CPU socket on modern boards, LGA(Land Grid Array) or PGA(Pin Grid Array) and both use ZIF sockets(Zero Insertion Force) which means you pop it in and use the leaver to lock it down without having to apply any force.
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| LGA Socket |
LGA is common with Intel Processors where the Pins are on the motherboard socket. PGA is common with AMD CPUs where the pins are on the CPU itself.
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| PGA Socket |
CPUs come with many cores, they started out with just one core, progressed to 2 cores, some older CPUs actually had 3 cores then 4 cores know as Quad Core CPUs and now we can get 6 and 8 cores which are more popular with such computer builds as gaming PCs, Servers and Home Servers, this is because the more cores you have the more things you can do in terms of opening multiple programs or running more than one program and not seeing much difference in your PCs performance.
Almost every time the CPU you choose will be determined by your motherboard and its compatible socket.
Memory Slots:
Memory on PCs come in many different formats, for the purpose of this article we'll assume your PC uses an up to date format of what is known as SDRAM, in the form of DIMMs(Dual In-line Memory Modules) and we will use DDR3(Double Data Rate version 3).
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| Memory Slots |
These modules come in varying storage sizes with varying data transmission speeds, when buying new modules you will need to know the FSB(Front Side Bus) speed of your motherboard, this is because again your memory is determined by your Motherboard. You can find out all of this in your manufacturers documentation that came with the PC or on the manufacturers website. The FSB is the effective speed that your CPU can communicate with your Memory. Motherboards have varying speeds that they can process stored data on the RAM modules. RAM- known as Random Access Memory - stores temporary volatile memory on the modules for use with the CPU, this is because it's faster than your CPU having to rummage around your Hard Drive looking for the data of say a program you have running time and time again. To put it simply the faster your memory the faster your CPU will work.
This opens up lots of options when combined with a decent to powerful CPU, your options on what you can do with your older machine greatly increase. If you want to use your PC for like typing up documents then you won't need to change much of your current set-up. Which saves you money! But if your looking to play high end games, you will need some pretty good memory to support your CPU, the same goes for A/V editing, CAD/CAM design etc. The more you want to do with your PC the more chance you will need to upgrade your computer and the more costly your project becomes.
PCI and PCIe slots:
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| PCI Slot Differences |
PCI and PCI express slots are used as expansion slots. These slots have many uses for adding extra functionality to your PC such as a NIC(Network Interface Card), extra USB ports or a sound card etc, these will probably be inserted into your PCI slots. If you are intending to game or do some sort of visual editing you will most likely need a good GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) and the fastest slot to use with these expansions cards are the PCI express slots. Again you need to know what your slots support and don't support so again refer to your manufacturers documentation for your motherboard.
IDE/PATA:
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| IDE Interface |
This is the interface that is used for connecting storage devices like hard drives or on older motherboards floppy drives. It uses a ribbon cable that's flat and grey with one coloured wire to signify which way to insert the connector when connecting a device to the motherboard. When SATA was introduced the term IDE became the term PATA which stood for Parallel ATA. Nowadays most motherboards will have SATA interfaces on, which are smaller in size and uses L shaped connectors as opposed to the PATA using the 40-Pin block connector. Each ribbon cable supports two storage devices on one interface but this meant that each device had to be set to master and slave.
If your PCs motherboard is pre 2000s you will most likely have IDE/PATA connections or you just might have a motherboard that supports both PATA and SATA during the transitional stage of phasing out PATA connections, this would be useful because for a simple upgrade you won't need to change your motherboard if your looking to build your own home server for storage and sharing on a local network.
SATA:
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| SATA Interfaces |
SATA replaced IDE/PATA interfaces, they offer better performance in reading and writing data to and from the hard drive and massive increases in data storage sizes. They are compatible with mechanical hard drives, CD/DVD drives and even Solid State Drives. The performance increase is great for almost any PC builds, such as a Home Server, a Home Theatre, Gaming rigs, Virtualisation machines. RAID is also a useful thing to implement with these interfaces because it can help with increasing performance, or storage size even more, you can create a back up of a server so if one drive dies you have the data still on the other.
Power Interfaces
ATX Power 20+4/4-pin:
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| ATX 20-pin without the extra 4-pin |
In my article about the PSU I told you about the main power connectors used to supply the correct power to certain components connected to the motherboard. The 20+4 pin connector supplies most of the required power to the components. This connector is usually next to the memory slots, you can't miss it, it's the biggest interface on the motherboard.
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| 4-pin in an 8-pin connector |
In addition to the 20+4 pin there is a smaller separate 4-pin interface which is reserved for a power connector for the CPU this is because more modern CPUs required there own dedicated power now. This is usually located next to the CPU itself on the left hand side.
Fan Headers:
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| FAN Header |
On the motherboard there are also small interfaces with 3 or 4 pins and a white casing around them, these are usually used for connecting fan cables to if they have the 3/4 pin connections. Some fans come with this connector to connect to these interfaces some come with Molex connectors and you have to get an adaptor to use with the 3/4 pin connections. However you do have a smaller similar looking interface towards the bottom of the motherboard that has a few pins and will be marked on the motherboard CMOS Reset, this is a jumper that's used to reset the stored settings in your BIOS and isn't used for connecting fans to.
CMOS Battery:
On every motherboard there is a watch battery connected to it. This battery is there to keep certain stored settings when the computer is switched off such as the date and time, ever wondered how your computer kept it's date and time and didn't reset when you turned off your PC well that battery is the reason.
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| CMOS Battery |
Front Panel Interfaces:
All the connections you have on the front of your case that you can connect peripherals and devices to such as audio, USB, power and reset buttons etc, have to have power supplied to them, this power of course comes from the motherboard.
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| Front Panel Connectors |
The audio, USB, power and reset buttons, eSATA and any other connections will have wires coming from the front of the case internally and feed through to the connections on the motherboard. These connections are found towards the bottom of the motherboard going across the bottom, ranging in varying groups of pins and all marked with what they can be used for. Additionally your motherboard's manufacturers guide will also point this out for you.
Rear Input and Output Connectors:
Also attached to the motherboard - that will be seen on the rear of the case when the motherboard is installed – are the peripheral connections, you will have PS/2 connections for mouse and keyboard and are coloured green for the mouse and purple for the keyboard, you may also get extra USB ports for plugging in external Hard Drives or mouse and keyboards with USB connections. More modern motherboards will also offer the newer faster USB3 connections.
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| Rear I/O connectors |
If your going to use your computer for say a home server then you will only need the onboard graphics this feature usually comes with onboard interfaces for monitors, commonly you will find the VGA connector. This is and old analogue connection and isn't widely used as much now as the digital DVI or HDMI connections are. More modern motherboards will come with DVI or HDMI connections as well. Along with all these connections you will have 3.5mm jack connectors for audio and microphone devices such as a head set with a microphone attached. There will also be for connecting to the internet a built in Ethernet port for a wired connection. If you want a wireless internet connection you will need to either buy a Network Interface Card(NIC) or a wireless USB dongle.
Installing the Motherboard
Remember to wear your ESD protection when handling your motherboard, we don't want you to short it out before you finish your upgrade!
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| Installing a Motherboard |
When installing the motherboard you want to line up the screw mounting posts to the corresponding screw holes, you want to make sure your CPU is towards the top of the case. The case's chassis will have many mounting posts for varying sizes of motherboard but should line up nicely with your motherboard. To make things easier as well if you have replaced the motherboard for your project and you have also replaced the CPU, attach the CPU before mounting the motherboard, I say this because some case's don't leave much room for movement and having the CPU on before you install the motherboard will make it easier. Once all components are connected you can then connect the PSU cables to the motherboard, if you get stuck refer to my article about the PSU and use your motherboards documentation to locate the correct cable connections.
Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.
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