What are the following computer devices used for? What does computer consist of. Connectors located on the motherboard

A desktop personal computer usually consists of two main components: system unit, which can be combined with a monitor and external devices, often called peripherals. A peripheral device is any device connected to the system unit. The most important and necessary for computer operation are the monitor, keyboard and mouse. The rest, such as a printer, scanner, webcam and many others, serve to expand functionality computer.

As a rule, all additional external devices connected to the system unit using special connectors. Their main part is located on its back wall. Some of the most popular ones are located on the front part, for example, USB connectors and audio outputs.

The system unit itself consists of internal devices called components. The main components of the system unit are:

• CPU - the main device for processing information and controlling a computer.
• Video card - a device for processing two-dimensional and 3D graphics, as well as displaying the image on the monitor (screen).
• RAM (RAM) - used for short-term storage of data while the computer is running. When it is turned off, the information recorded in RAM disappears;
• Storage device (hard drive) - used as the main means of storing all user data and programs. Its capacity is much larger than the amount of RAM, however, the speed of reading and writing information is less than when working with RAM. As you probably already guessed, when you turn off the computer, the information on the disk is saved.
• Motherboard (motherboard) is a complex device that connects all the components of a personal computer and ensures their coordinated operation.
• Optical drive - a device for reading and writing information on optical CDs, DVDs and Blue-ray discs.
• Frame - provides protection for all components from harmful external influences (for example, moisture) and gives an aesthetic appearance to your computer.
• power unit - transforms alternating current ordinary electrical networks high voltage(220 Volt) D.C. low voltage(12 V, 5 V and 3 V) required to power computer components.

In addition to desktop options, on modern computer market, there are now very popular portable or mobile computers, which include: laptops in various design variations, all-in-one computers and tablet PCs.

In laptops, the system unit, monitor, keyboard and mouse are combined in one folding case. In monoblocks, manufacturers connected only the monitor and the system unit together; the keyboard and mouse are connected separately. In tablets, a keyboard and mouse are initially absent, since this device is controlled by touching the screen with your fingers.

If you would like to learn more about internal structure computer and understand many of the intricacies modern market components, then our article will help you: where this issue is discussed in more detail.

In this article we will look in detail at what elements a personal computer consists of, what it all looks like, and what function it performs. This article is more suitable for beginner users, but also more experienced users Surely they will be able to find something for themselves.

First of all, let's define a computer:

Personal computer, PC (from the English personal computer, PC) or PC (personal electronic Calculating machine) - desktop microcomputer with operational characteristics household appliance and universal functionality.

The computer was originally created as a computing machine, but the PC is also used for other purposes - as a means of accessing information networks and as a platform for multimedia and computer games.

An ordinary personal computer that is in your home or work consists of the following parts:

• System unit;
• Monitor;
• Information input devices;
• Additional or peripherals(printer, scanner, webcam, etc.);

System unit

The main component of any computer is the system unit. System units are different types, both in design and size. Horizontal and vertical.

The system unit contains all components modern computer, in fact, this is what makes the computer work.

Main elements of the system unit:

• Frame;
• Power unit;
• Motherboard;
• CPU;
• RAM;
• Video card;
• Sound card;
• HDD;
• Disk drive (optical drive);
• Cooling system;

All elements are closely connected to each other and work as a whole.

Let's look at each element in more detail.

Frame

System unit case - outer shell system unit of a personal computer, which protects internal elements from physical impact. The housing has great importance For stable operation computer. For example, a well-designed cooling system inside the case is the key to stable operation of the computer and a guarantee against overheating.

power unit

In order for all the elements of the system unit to work, we need a power supply. As the name implies, the power supply supplies electricity to all components of the system unit. On this moment the most popular power supplies by power: 450, 500 and 600 W. On powerful computers, which include gaming ones, are installed more powerful blocks nutrition.

Motherboard

The motherboard is a complex multi-layer printed circuit board and the largest board of the system unit. the main task motherboard is to connect all the elements into one computing system.

CPU

Processor, on motherboard, is responsible for performing all computational operations and processing information. No matter how trivial it may sound, the better and newer (and therefore more expensive) the processor, the faster and more volume of operations it will perform. However, the most powerful processor does not guarantee fast work computer, while the remaining components of the system unit are very outdated.

RAM

Random access memory or RAM is a random access memory device. It is intended to be temporary and quick accessible storage data for transmission to the processor for processing. For example, running programs in the background or hidden mode, clipboard, etc. The more RAM installed on your computer, the faster you can expect it to work.

Video card

A video card, just like a motherboard, is a complex multi-layer printed circuit board that is inserted into a connector on the motherboard. The video card can be either built-in (integrated) or external, in the form of a separate board. The main function of a video card is to generate and display an image on a computer screen. The power of the integrated video card is often only enough for use office applications and surfing the Internet.

Sound card

Sound card – processing and outputting sound to computer speakers. There are times when the built-in sound card fails or the user is not satisfied with the sound quality of the compositions, then an external sound card is installed.

HDD

HDD or drive on hard magnetic disks are a storage device designed to store information. It is on the hard drive that all your data is stored and the operating system is installed. Windows system(Linux). Currently, SSD drives are gaining popularity.

Drive

Nowadays discs are becoming less and less popular; they have been replaced by USB flash drives. But there are times when a disk drive or, as it is also called, an “optical drive” is simply necessary. When you need to read something from a disk, install Windows or drivers on your computer.

Cooling system

The cooling system is a system of fans that serves to remove warm air from the components of the system unit and supply cool air from the external environment.

Continuation of the article:

Computer device. What does computer consist of. Part 2. Peripherals.

Personal Computer is complex electronic device, designed to perform a wide range of tasks. This could be various calculations, calculations, listening to music, watching videos, various office tasks, games and much more.

Personal Computer can be stationary or mobile. TO mobile computers include laptops, netbooks and tablets.

A desktop computer is also Lately has undergone changes, but in most cases it represents the system unit, monitor, input devices (keyboard and mouse), audio devices (speakers, headphones and microphone), as well as other peripheral devices (printer, scanner, etc.).

For normal functioning A personal computer requires only a system unit, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse.

Also necessary operating system, in most cases they use Windows, but you can also download Linux.
Next we will take a closer look at each of these devices.

System unit

Main node personal computer is the system unit. It is a case, most often a metal vertical box, on the front panel of which there are power buttons and disk drives. All the necessary connectors and cables are located on the back wall. The system unit consists of a power supply, a motherboard (also known as a motherboard or “motherboard”), hard drive(HDD), video card, processor (CPU), random access memory (RAM), drives (CD/DVD), sound card and network card. Often network and sound card are carried out integrated into the motherboard, that is, the radio elements of the board are soldered directly onto the motherboard.

power unit

The power supply is made in the form of a separate box, which is located at the top rear of the system unit and has several power cables for all elements of the system unit.

power unit

Motherboard

The motherboard is the largest in the system unit printed circuit board, on which all the main components of the computer are installed (CPU, RAM, video card), it also has connectors for connecting hard disk and drives, as well as cables of USB ports and connectors going to back panel housings. The motherboard coordinates the operation of all computer devices.

Motherboard

CPU

The processor is a chip designed to perform basic computing operations. The processors are available in two by AMD and Intel. Depending on the manufacturer of the processor, the connector (location of its installation) also differs, so when choosing a motherboard you should not forget this. You just won't insert AMD processor into the motherboard for Intel processors.

CPU

Video card

The video card is a separate printed circuit board installed in the connector PCI Express motherboard and is designed to display images on the monitor screen. It processes the received information and converts it into analog and digital video signals, which are supplied to the monitor via a cable connector. A video card usually contains a processor (GPU) and RAM.

Video card

RAM

RAM is one or more small boards, installed in special connectors on the motherboard (DDR). RAM provides temporary storage of intermediate data while the computer is running. RAM is characterized by access speed and memory capacity. To date, the most fast memory has DDR3 standard.

RAM

HDD

A hard drive is a permanent storage of data; it can be user data, system data, or temporary data. The hard drive stores the operating system, without which normal operation computer will be impossible. The operating system can also use the hard drive to save the contents of RAM (for example, in hibernation mode). It is a closed metal parallelepiped hard drive that is connected to the motherboard via a connector (SATA).

HDD

Drive

Drive optical disks It looks like a hard drive, but has a retractable tray on the front panel for installing optical drives. Serves as a drive for reading and writing optical discs.

Others can be installed on the system board additional devices, For example Wi-Fi module or TV tuner.

Monitor

The computer monitor is used to graphical representation information that is certainly understandable to the PC user. Recently, exclusively liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have been produced. Monitors can be equipped with digital and/or analog video connectors (DVI, HDMI).

Keyboard

The keyboard is an integral input device of any computer. The keyboard consists of groups of keys for entering symbolic information. Also many modern keyboards are equipped additional keys, for example, to control media players and various programs.

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BASIC COMPUTER DEVICES.

The main devices include: processors, motherboards, video cards, hard drive, ports and RAM. There are also input and output devices without which a computer cannot work normally. These include: disk drives, CD-rom, monitors, printers, keyboards, mice, scanners and modems.

MONITORS.

Screens (monitors) are regular size(14 and 15 inches diagonally), enlarged (17, 19) and large, like a TV (20,21 and even 24 inches), color (from 4 - 8 - 16 to several billion colors) and monochrome (that is, two-color, including the background color: black - white, black - yellow, black - green). They are also divided depending on their resolution. There are three types of monitors: liquid crystal, plasma flat and cathode ray tube based.

MOTHERBOARDS.

The motherboard is one of the main devices of the computer; processor chips, memory and chips of other devices are installed on it.

HDD.

Very important parameter – hard volume disk. There are from 120 megabytes to 60 gigabytes and above. An important parameter is also the speed of the hard drive.

Conventional disks rotate at a speed of 5400 rpm, and new ones - already 7200.

DISK DRIVES (CD, FDD).

Modern FDD drives designed for a 3.5-inch floppy disk.

A floppy disk typically holds 1.44MB of data.

The CD-ROM drive for laser compact discs holds about 650-700 MB of data or 70 minutes of audio.

PRINTERS, PORTS, MODEMS.

A printer is a printing device. Printers are dot matrix, inkjet and laser.

There are ports three types: parallel, serial and infrared.

Modems allow us to connect to computer networks through telephone line. They are divided into external and internal, and there are also fax modems.

CPU.

The processor, or more fully microprocessor, and also often called the CPU (central processing unit) is the central component of a computer. This is the mind that controls, directly or indirectly, everything that happens inside the computer.

When von Neumann first proposed storing sequences of instructions, called programs, in the same memory as data, it was a truly innovative idea. It was published in "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" in 1945. This report described a computer as consisting of four main parts: a central arithmetic unit, a central control unit, memory, and input/output facilities.

Today, more than half a century later, almost all processors have von Neumann architecture.

Historical retrospective

As is known, all processors personal computers based on original design Intel. The first processor used in PCs was the Intel 8088 chip. Intel time had previously released more powerful processor 8086. The 8088 was chosen for cost reasons: its 8-bit data bus allowed for cheaper motherboards than the 8086's 16-bit. Also during the design of the first PCs, most available interface chips used an 8-bit design. Those early processors weren't even close to being powerful enough to run modern applications.

The table below shows the main groups of Intel processors from the first generation 8088/86 to the sixth generation Pentium Pro and Pentium II:

The third generation of processors, based on the Intel 80386SX and 80386DX, were the first 32-bit processors used in PCs. The main difference between the two was that the 386SX was only 32-bit internally as it talked to outside world over a 16-bit bus. This means that data moved between the processor and the rest of the computer at half the speed of the 486DX.

The fourth generation of processors was also 32-bit. However, they all offered a number of improvements. Firstly, the entire design of the 486 generation was completely revised, which in itself doubled the speed. Secondly, they all had 8kb of internal cache, right next to the processor logic. This caching of data transfers from main memory meant that the average memory request processor wait on the motherboard was reduced by up to 4%, since typically necessary information was already in the cache.

The 486DX differed from the 486SX only in the math coprocessor included inside. This separate processor is designed to perform floating point operations. It is not used much in everyday applications, but it dramatically changes the performance of numeric tables, statistical analysis, design systems and so on.

An important innovation was the frequency doubling introduced in the 486DX2. This means that the internal processor operates at twice the speed of the external electronics. Data is transferred between the processor, internal cache and coprocessor at twice the speed, resulting in comparable performance gains. The 486DX4 took this technology further, tripling the frequency to 75 or 100MHz internally, and doubling the primary cache to 16kb.

The Pentium, defining the fifth generation of processors, significantly outperformed the previous 486 chips thanks to several architectural changes, including doubling the bus width to 64 bits. The P55C MMX makes further significant improvements, doubling the size of the primary cache and expanding the instruction set with operations optimized for multimedia applications.

The Pentium Pro, introduced in 1995 as the successor to the Pentium, was the first in the sixth generation of processors and introduced several architectural features, never seen before in the PC world. The Pentium Pro was the first mainstream processor to radically change the way instructions were executed by translating them into RISC-like microinstructions and executing them in a highly advanced internal core. It is also notable for its significantly higher performance secondary cache compared to all previous processors. Instead of using a motherboard-based cache running at memory bus speed, it uses an integrated L2 cache on its own bus running at full processor speed, typically three times faster than cache on Pentium systems.

Intel introduced the next new chip after the Pentium Pro almost a year and a half later - the Pentium II appeared, which was a very big evolutionary step from the Pentium Pro. This fueled speculation that one of Intel's main goals in producing the Pentium II was to avoid the difficulties of making the Pentium Pro's expensive integrated L2 cache. Architecturally, the Pentium II is not very different from the Pentium Pro, with a similar x86-emulating core and most of the same features.

The Pentium II improved the Pentium Pro architecture by doubling the primary cache size to 32kb, using special cache to increase the efficiency of 16-bit

processing (the Pentium Pro is optimized for 32-bit applications, but does not handle 16-bit code as well) and increasing the size of write buffers. However, the main topic of conversation around the new Pentium II was its layout. The secondary cache integrated into the Pentium Pro, operating at full processor frequency, was replaced in the Pentium II by small diagram, containing a processor and 512kb of secondary cache operating at half the processor frequency. Collected together, they are enclosed in a special single-edge cartridge (SEC), designed to be inserted into the 242-pin connector (Socket 8) on the new style motherboards Pentium II.

Have you ever opened your system unit? After all, everyone was interested in looking at the structure of the computer inside the system unit. What's going on there? There are many small parts (devices) that at first glance seem very complex and mysterious to you. But in reality, it's not all that complicated. This lesson will help you master some basic concepts, get to know the computer structure inside the system unit.

Computer structure from the inside (hardware)

Let's look at the inside of the system unit.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)- this device is located inside the system unit, on the motherboard. It is called the brain of the computer and its job is to carry out commands. Every time you press a key, click a mouse, or run a program, you are sending commands to the processor.

Processor speed is measured in megahertz (MHz) - one million operations per second, and gigahertz (GHz) - one billion operations per second. More fast processor will execute instructions faster. However, the speed of a computer largely depends on the speed various components, and not just from the processor.

There are many manufacturers of processors for personal computers, but the most famous of them Intel And AMD.

- this device is the main board of the computer. This is a thin plate that contains the processor, memory, connectors hard drives And optical drives, expansion cards, as well as ports, USB ports.

It powers the computer. It sends power through the cable to the motherboard and other components.

If you decide to look inside the system unit, then first of all make sure that you unplug the computer from the outlet. Before touching the internal components of the computer, you should touch a grounded metal object or a metal part of the computer case to remove static build-up. Static electricity can be transmitted through computer circuits and destroy them.

RAM - Random access memory (RAM) is your system's short-term memory. Whenever a computer performs a calculation, it temporarily stores the data in memory for as long as it is needed.

This temporary memory disappears when the computer is turned off. If you are working on a document, spreadsheet, or other type of file, you should save it so you don't lose it. When you save a file, the data is written to the hard drive, which acts as long-term storage.

RAM is measured in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). The more RAM, the more processes the computer can handle simultaneously. If your computer is slow, slows down when there are several open source software, then this is due to lack of RAM. In this case, you can always add additional RAM to improve productivity.

A bit is the smallest unit of measurement. A byte is 8 bits. A megabyte contains about one million bytes, and a gigabyte is about 1 billion bytes.

is a data processing center on a computer. Everything is installed there software, all your documents and other files. The hard drive serves as long-term storage. This means that even if you turn off your computer and unplug it, all data will be saved.

Responsible for what you see on your monitor screen. Most computers have a GPU ( GPU), built into the motherboard. In simple words This is a built-in video card. But if you play games with powerful graphics, then the built-in video cards simply will not be able to reproduce them. Therefore, some people install a separate powerful video card in the additional expansion slots of the computer.

A device called sound card (the name speaks for itself) is responsible for sound. Here I think everything is clear.

LAN card allows a computer to exchange data over a network, access the Internet via Ethernet cable, or through wireless connection(Wi-Fi). Many computers have network cards built into the motherboard. If you don't have one, you can buy it separately network card and add it to additional slot extensions.

Is technology wireless communication over short distances. It is often used in computers to work with wireless keyboard, mouse and printer. They are rarely built into the motherboard.