1. Week 5 All About Motherboards
A+ Guide to Hardware: Managing, Maintaining, and Troubleshooting, Sixth Edition
Week 5
All About Motherboards 1

2. Objectives
Learn about the different types of motherboards and how to select one
Learn how to support and configure a motherboard
Learn how to install or replace a motherboard
Learn how to troubleshoot a motherboard and processor

3. Motherboard Types and Features
Most complicated computer component
One of the first items to consider when building a computer
Consider the following when purchasing a motherboard:
Form factor
Processor socket and chipset
Buses and number of bus slots
Other connectors, slots, and ports
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

4. Motherboard Form Factors
Determines motherboard size, features
Compatible with power supplies, cases, processors, expansion cards
Most popular
ATX, MicroATX, and Mini-ITX
Mini-ITX is smaller than MicroATX and is also known as ITX
The following slides show examples of form factors and comparisons of sizes and hold positions of several form factors
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

5. Figure 3-3 A Mini-ITX motherboard
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

6. Table 3-1 Sockets for Intel processors used for desktop computers
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

7. Processor Sockets
Processor socket – determines which processors a board can support
Socket holds Intel or AMD processor
Sockets for Intel processors
Intel makes several Itanium and Xeon processors designed for servers
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

8. Processor Sockets
Sockets and processor use different methods to make contacts between them:
Pin grid array (PGA) socket
Pins aligned in uniform rows around socket
Land grid array (LGA)
Uses lands (pads) rather than pins
Examples of LGA sockets: LGA775 and LGA1366
Flip-chip land grid array (FCLGA) socket
Chip is flipped over so that the top of the chip is on the bottom and makes contact with the socket
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

9. Processor Sockets
Sockets and processor use different methods to make contacts between them (cont’d):
Staggered pin grid array (SPGA)
Pins staggered over socket
Squeezes more pins into a small space
Easily bent
Ball grid array (BGA)
Not really a socket
Processor is soldered to the motherboard
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

10. Figure 3-6 Socket LGA775 is the first Intel socket to use lands rather than pins
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

11. Processor Sockets Zero insertion force (ZIF) sockets
All current processor sockets
Side lever lifts processor up and out of the socket
Sockets for AMD Processors
AMD uses the PGA socket architecture (desktops)
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

12. Table 3-3 Sockets for AMD processors used for desktop computers
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

13. Processor Sockets Match a processor to the socket and motherboard
Refer to motherboard, processor compatibility documentation
Figure 3-9 AMD Athlon 64 processor to be inserted into an AM2+ socket
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

14. Buses and Expansion Slots
Buses are like highway transportation systems
Four types of cargo carried by a bus:
Power, control signals, memory addresses, data
Bus evolution
Buses have evolved around data path and speed
Synchronous components work with clock cycle
Asynchronous components are out of step with CPU
Wait state: command to CPU to wait for slower device
Bus types: expansion, local, local I/O, local video
Expansion buses are asynchronous components
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

15. Table 6-3 Buses listed by throughput
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

16. Figure 6-6 Four outdated bus connections on expansion cards
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

17. Micro Cannel
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

18. Later PC buses
PS/2 series - Microchannel bus totally redefined and patented
IBM’s attempt to discourage clones; but PS/2 not too successful
EISA - Extended ISA
industry (non-IBM) extension of ISA to 32-bit data transfer
still back-compatible
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

19. VESA Board
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

20. Buses and Expansion Slots (continued)
The PCI buses
Intended to replace the 16-bit ISA bus
Types: Conventional PCI, PCI-X, PCI Express
On-board ports (integrated components)
Examples: keyboard, mouse port, parallel printer, USB
Internal connectors
EIDE, floppy drive connector, serial ATA, SCSI, 1394
Riser slots
Audio/modem riser (AMR)
Communication and networking riser (CNR)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

21. PCI
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

22. PCI-Express
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

23. Figure 6-10 How PCI Express connects to the chipset and processor
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

24. Figure 6-12 An audio/modem riser slot can accommodate an inexpensive modem riser card
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

25. Hardware Configuration
Three ways to configure the motherboard:
DIP switches, jumpers, CMOS RAM
Dual inline package (DIP) switch
Has ON (binary 1) and OFF (binary 0) positions
Reset DIP switch when adding or removing device
Use pointed instrument other than graphite pencil
Jumpers
Retain setup or installation information
Are opened and closed using jumper covers
Typical setting: enabling/disabling keyboard power-up
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

26. Figure 6-14 DIP switches are sometimes used to store setup data on motherboards
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

27. Figure 3-36 BIOS configuration jumper settings
Figure This group of three jumpers controls the BIOS configuration
Figure BIOS configuration jumper settings
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

28. Hardware Configuration (continued)
CMOS RAM
Also called clock/nonvolatile RAM (RTC/NVRAM)
Stores most configuration for the motherboard
Can be accessed without opening the case
CMOS setup program
Stored on a floppy disk or ROM BIOS chip
Access built-in program by pressing key during POST
Menus: Main, Advanced, Power, Boot, and Exit
Brand name PCs, such as IBM, have custom screens
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

29. CMOS http://bochs.sourceforge.net/techspec/CMOS-reference.txtR
CMOS 37h - AMI WinBIOS - SETUP COLORS, PASSWORD SEED
Bitfields for AMI WinBIOS setup colors and password seed:
Bit(s) Description (Table C044)
password seed
WinBIOS/AMIBIOS setup color options
CMOS 37h - Quadtel HT12 BIOS EXTENDED MEMORY (high byte)
R373A
CMOS 37h-3Ah - AMI 1990 Hyundai super-NB368S notebook - PASSWORD
Desc: encoded password, max 4 bytes. R
CMOS 38h - PHOENIX - Second user defined hard disk (type 48) Write Precomp. LSB
Note: used only when PS/2 style password is NOT in effect.
R383D
CMOS 38h-3Dh - AMI - Encrypted Password
R383F
CMOS 38h-3Fh - ??? IBM PS/2 - Encrypted Password
Note: Initialized to 00h in all bytes. Will accept from 1-7 scan codes. R
CMOS 39h - PHOENIX - Second user defined hard disk (type 48) Write Precomp. MSB
R3A
CMOS 3Ah - PHOENIX - Second user defined hard disk (type 48) Parking Zone LSB
R3B
CMOS 3Bh - PHOENIX - Second user defined hard disk (type 48) Parking Zone MSB
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

30. BIOS Manufactures
About 100 different manufactures
Common PC BIOS’s
AMD
AMI – American Megatrends
ASUS
AWARD
Dell
GateWay
Intel
Phoenix
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

31. Table 6-4 How to access CMOS setup
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

32. Figure 6-18 CMOS Setup Main menu
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

33. Using Setup BIOS To Configure a Motherboard
Change the boot sequence
Might need to change boot sequence from hard drive to DVD
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) – new standard slowly replacing BIOS
Ability to boot from large disks (over 2 TiB) with a GUID Partition Table, GPT.[12][13]
CPU-independent architecture[12]
CPU-independent drivers[12]
Flexible pre-OS environment, including network capability
Modular design
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

34. Using Setup BIOS To Configure a Motherboard
Configure onboard devices
Enable/disable a port or group of ports
View hard drive and optical drive information
Processor and clock speeds
Some motherboards allow changing the processor speed and/or the memory multiplier
Monitor temperatures, fan speeds, and voltages
Intrusion detection
Can enable event logging (logs when case is opened)
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

35. Using Setup BIOS To Configure a Motherboard
Power-on passwords
Assigned in BIOS setup to prevent unauthorized access to the computer and/or BIOS setup utility
May be possible to set a supervisor and user password
If both passwords are set, must enter a valid password to boot the system
How to set passwords varies depending on motherboard and BIOS
Some allow a System power-on password, which will require a password be entered every boot
A Setup power-on password only requires a password be entered in order to access BIOS setup
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

36. Using Setup BIOS To Configure a Motherboard
LoJack
Technology embedded in the BIOS of many laptops to protect a system against theft
Must subscribe to service
Software and BIOS work together to locate a laptop whenever it connects to the Internet
Drive Encryption and Drive Password Protection
Some motherboards allow you to set a password in order to access the hard drive
Password kept on drive so that it still works even if drive is moved to another computer
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

37. Using Setup BIOS To Configure a Motherboard
TPM chip – Trusted Platform Module chip
BitLocker Encryption in Windows 7/Vista works with this chip
Encryption key is kept on chip
Assures that a drive cannot be used in another computer
Ensure that installed s/w can not be copies.
Virtualization – implementation of s/w or h/w through s/w, implementation is independent of host.
Virtualization must be enabled in BIOS setup for VM software to work
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

38. UEFI vs BIOS Essentially version 2.0 of the EFI standard.
Unified Extendable Firmware Interface
Initial BIOS requires 16 bit processor mode (Intel CPUs running in 8088 mode, think 1980’s)
Can only access 1M of memory
When Windows takes over, drivers override this limitation.
Support for MBR can access boot disks only up to 1TB.
Requires several boot loader stages, since loader is tied to specific locations on the disk.
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

39. UEFI Advantages Boot from large disk +2 TB Independent of:
Does not rely on boot sector, but able to detect the boot file on the system partition.
Independent of:
CPU (ARM, Intel x86, Itanium others)
CPU independent Drivers, OS does not need to know what CPU is running.
Network capability
Support for GPT (GUID partition table)
Supports any number of bootable partitions
Disks sizes up to 2 Zb (8x270)
Support for most graphic standards
Fully backward compatible with BIOS
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

40. Using Setup BIOS To Configure a Motherboard
Exiting the BIOS setup menus
Most exit screens give several options
Figure BIOS setup Exit menu
A+ Guide to Hardware, Sixth Edition

41. Hardware Configuration (continued)
Battery power to CMOS RAM
Enables CMOS to hold data after the PC is turned off
Setup information is lost if battery fails or disconnects
Startup passwords in CMOS
Stored in CMOS RAM and changed in setup screen
Should be distinguished from OS passwords
CMOS settings are specified in motherboard manuals
Documentation of configuration settings
Enables you to recapture lost or altered settings
Should be labeled and stored in a safe place
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

42. Figure 6-24 The coin cell is the most common type of CMOS battery
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

43. Flashing ROM BIOS Programs stored in the ROM BIOS chip:
CMOS setup program
Startup BIOS that manages the startup process
System BIOS that manages basic I/O functions
Programs on ROM BIOS may need upgrades
Flashing: upgrading or refreshing ROM BIOS chip
Sources for ROM BIOS upgrades
Manufacturer’s Web site
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

44. Figure 6-26 Intel displays a list of motherboard model numbers that have a Flash BIOS upgrade available
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

45. Motherboard Drivers Located on CD bundled with motherboard
Motherboard CD may also contain useful utilities
Drivers are periodically updated by manufacturer
Dealing with an unstable motherboard
Check for updated drivers, especially chipset drivers
Install updated drivers for non-functioning devices
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

46. Replacing a Motherboard
Overview of the replacement process
1. Verify that you have selected the right motherboard
2. Determine the power configuration settings
3. Remove components to reach the old motherboard
4. Set any jumpers or switches on the motherboard
5. Install the processor and processor cooler
6. Install RAM into appropriate slots on motherboard
7. Install the motherboard
8. Attach cabling (case switches, power supply, drives)
9. Install the video card on the motherboard
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

47. Replacing a Motherboard (continued)
Overview of the replacement process (continued)
10. Plug in PC and then attach monitor and keyboard
11. Boot the system and enter CMOS setup
12. Make sure the settings are set to default
13. Observe POST and verify that no error occurs
14. Check for conflicts with system resources
15. Install the motherboard drives
16. Install any other expansion cards and drives
17. Verify the system is up and running
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

48. Preparing the Motherboard to Go Into the Case
Read the manual before preparing the motherboard
Setting the jumpers
First step in preparing the motherboard
The manual explains jumper and DIP switch settings
Information differs from one motherboard to the next
Tasks performed after setting the jumpers
Install the processor and cooler (Chapter 5)
Install the memory modules (Chapter 7)
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

49. Figure 6-27 BIOS configuration jumper settings
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

50. Installing the Motherboard in the Case
Overview of the eight general steps:
1. Install the faceplate (I/O shield)
2. Install the standoffs (spacers)
3. Secure the motherboard in the case
4. Connect the power cord to the PI power connection
5. Connect 4-pin auxiliary power cord to motherboard
6. Connect the wire leads from front panel of case
7. Refer to manual to verify wire to pin connection
8. Connect USB connection (if present) to USB ports
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

51. Completing the Installation
Following the connection of cables and cords
Install the video card
Plug in the keyboard and monitor
Turn the system on
Look out for errors during POST
Install drivers from CD bundled with motherboard
Verify operations
Make OS and CMOS adjustments as needed
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

52. Troubleshooting the Motherboard and Processor
Field replaceable units (FRUs) on old motherboards
CPU, RAM, RAM cache, ROM BIOS, CMOS battery
FRU components on newer motherboards:
CPU, RAM, CMOS battery, and motherboard itself
POST reporting aids diagnosis
Chapter 3 or manufacturer Web site describe codes
A good tactic: replace a bad device with a new one
Caveat: check voltage from power supply first
If voltage is excessive, new part may be damaged
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

53. Figure 6-40 The ROM BIOS manufacturer’s Web site is a good source of information about beep codes
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

54. Problems with Installations
If CPU was added to working motherboard, check:
Thermal paste between CPU and heat sink
Fastening between cooler and motherboard frame
Pins or lands on the socket and processor
Things to check if new motherboard is not working:
Whether the front cover of the case is installed
Whether the power switch on back of the case is on
Incorrect connections
Installation of CPU, thermal compound, and cooler
Installation of all motherboard drivers on the CD
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

55. Problems with the Motherboard and Processor
Some symptoms of impending failure
The system begins to boot but then powers down
Intermittent Windows or hard drive errors occur
First troubleshooting task to perform
Update drivers of components not working
Use support CD bundled with motherboard
A few other tasks to perform if update does not work
Change power saving features, such as sleep mode
Check jumpers, DIP switches, CMOS settings
Exchange the processor
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

56. Summary Motherboard form factor drives selection of motherboard
Configurable components: bus, expansion slots, other connectors
Cargo carried by a computer bus: electrical power, control signals, memory address, data
Bus types: local, local video, local I/O, expansion
The PCI bus was designed to replace the ISA bus
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e

57. Summary (continued)
Three tools for configuring a motherboard: DIP switches, jumpers, CMOS setup program
The CMOS setup program is stored on a floppy disk or ROM BIOS chip
Document configuration settings for recovery needs
Upgrade ROM BIOS using a technique called flashing
Use POST reporting to help diagnose problems
A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining your PC, 6e