1. Motherboards
Chapter 3
Release 22/10/2010
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2. Objectives List the types of motherboards
Identify the motherboard form factor
Identify the components of the motherboard
Explain the use of chipsets
List the types of chipsets
Configure the motherboard
Install the motherboard
Troubleshoot the motherboard
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3. Types of Motherboards - I
Integrated motherboards – Have all peripheral device slots, input output ports, serial and parallel ports mounted on the board. Saves space and cheaper as compared to non-integrated motherboards.
Non-Integrated motherboards – Have RAM slots integrated on the board. All the I/O ports such as serial and parallel port connectors, other controllers such as hard drive and floppy disk drives controllers are attached to the system using expansion boards
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4. Types of Motherboards - II
Desktop Motherboards – Used in personal computers and desktops
Server Motherboards– Designed to offer high-end services and supports various redundancy technologies
Laptop Motherboards– Have very advanced features, as compared to the desktop motherboards
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5. Question for GD Time Limit – 2 Mins
What are the different types of motherboard?
Sl.
Types of Motherboard 1 2 3
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6. Form Factors of Motherboard
Refers to motherboards physical shape, layout and positioning of components on it
Determines the type of system case it will fit into
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7. Modern Form Factor - I Types of modern form factors:
ATX – Popular and has best features of LPX and AT form factors
Micro ATX – Limited expandability and capacity
NLX – New addition to motherboard form factors, easier assembly, reduced cost, space efficiency and flexibility
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8. Modern Form Factor - II
BTX - BTX form factor was introduced as a replacement for the ATX form factor in the year 2003.
Supports better thermal management. This form factor was introduced to support the new emerging technologies such as SATA and USB 2.0.
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9. Question for GD Time Limit – 2 Mins
What is form factor? List the types of form factor.
Sl.
Types of Form factor 1 2 3 4 5
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10. Components of a Motherboard
Motherboard contains slots, sockets and connectors for connecting various devices
Contains super I/O chip, slots for connecting various peripheral devices
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11. Connectors – I and show from CBT
System panel connector
USB headers
Digital audio connector
MDC connector – connects to modem card module
Internal audio connectors – conents to CD ROM or voice modem card
GAME/MIDI connector
System Management Bus (SMBus) connector
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12. Connectors - II ATX 12V connector ATX Power Connector
CPU and chassis fan connectors
Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) connectors
IDE connectors
Serial port connector
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13. On Board Disk Drive Connectors
Hard drive and DVD-ROM drive is connected to motherboard using on-board disk drive connectors
Primary connector used to connect storage devices is the Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) port
Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) technology is used to connect the newer versions of hard drive
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14. Keyboard and Mouse Connector
Keyboard and mouse device are connected to (Personal System) PS/2 or USB port of computer
Ports are located at the back side of the system
PS/2 port contains 6 holes and a notch in the middle
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15. Other Connectors
Power Supply Connector – Types of power connectors used by various power supplies are ATX power supply connector, ATX auxiliary power connector and ATX 12V connector
Serial and Parallel Port Connector – 9 pin serial port connector and 25 pin parallel port connector are used to connect various I/O devices
Universal Serial Bus (USB) - Offers Plug-and-Play support and also supplies power to the device
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16. Question for GD Time Limit – 4 Mins
List the different connectors available on the motherboard and it’s use.
Sl.
Connectors
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17. Expansion Slots
Motherboard has PCI slots where you can connect PCI cards.
Different PCI cards include LAN card, SCSI card and USB card
Extend the capacity of the existing motherboard
AGP slot is used to attach a graphic card
PCI express or PCI-E is the latest Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group’s specification for the I/O bus.
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18. CNR Expansion Slot
Communication and Network Riser is a slot found on certain PC motherboards.
Intel developed this slot to replace AMR design.
Used for specialized networking, audio and telephony equipments
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19. Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Slot
Bus standard developed by Intel Corporation
Used for attaching peripheral devices to motherboard
Slots work at 33 MHz
newer variants are available that have a 64-bit wide bus and work at 33 MHz or 66 MHz
Data Transmission Rate of PCI is 133 MBps
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20. PCI Extended (PCI-X)
PCI Extended (PCI-X) is a standard designed jointly by HP, IBM, and Compaq
Increase the performance of high-bandwidth devices, such as Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel
Fully backward compatible with PCI and data transmission rate is 1GBps
Comes in two variants: PCI-X 1.0 and PCI-X 2.0
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21. PCI Express (PCI-E) - I
PCIe 2.0 doubles bandwidth from 0.25 GByte/s to 0.5 GByte/s, meaning a x32 connector can transfer data at up to 16 GByte/s for both video cards
PCIe 2.0 have two 32 bits channels for each GPU (2x16), while first version only 1x16 and operating at 2 GHz.
PCIe 2.0 is backward compatible with PCIe v1.x.
Having point-to-point, hot-pluggable and hot-swappable system bus
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22. PCI-E - II
PCIe 3.0 include a number of optimizations for enhanced signaling and data integrity, including transmitter and receiver equalization and clock data recovery.
PCIe 3.0's 8 GT/s bit rate effectively delivers double PCIe 2.0 (5GT/s) bandwidth.
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23. AGP Slot
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) is used to display graphics and 3D images in efficient manner
Offers high data transfer speed between the video chipset and the CPU
AGP cards are available at different speeds, AGP 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x
Operate in a voltage of 1.5 to 3.3 volts
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24. Question for GD Time Limit – 3 Mins
List the different expansion slots available on a motherboard.
Sl.
Types of slots
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25. Jumpers Small pins that enable you to configure motherboard settings
Performs different functions when it is shorted and when it is left open, without the shunt
Motherboard manual is a necessity when you deal with jumpers
Motherboards may have jumpers to set processor type, system recovery option, over clocking and to discharge the CMOS RAM battery
Most of the motherboards currently available in the market have auto jumper setup option
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26. Practical
Perform the activity mentioned in Lab no. 1 in the text book:
To identify various connectors, expansion slots, and jumpers on the motherboard.
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27. Onboard Components – I and show from CBT
CPU socket
Northbridge
Southbridge
DDR DIMM sockets
Super I/O controller
Flash ROM
Standby Power LED
Audio CODEC
LAN controller
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28. Onboard Components – II
Mouse port
Parallel port
LAN port
Line In jack
Line Out jack
Microphone jack
USB ports
Video port
Serial port
Keyboard port
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29. Memory Slots Provide an interface for attaching RAM on the board.
RAM module is inserted in these slots.
Most of the motherboards come equipped with at least 2 memory slots.
Maximum number of slots available depends on the motherboard.
Most Memory slots are Double Inline Memory Module (DIMM) type.
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30. CPU Socket Interface that connects CPU with motherboard
Consists of holes in which the pins of the processor are installed
Sockets are used with particular type of processor
Sockets already installed on board
Most of the sockets used are built on the Land Grid Array (LGA) architecture where pins are available on sockets.
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31. CMOS Battery
Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) batteries power CMOS chip of motherboard
Saves settings and time when computer is switched off
Last for around 5 years
Mostly made up of Lithium
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32. BIOS Chip
Contains necessary code required to operate basic system utilities such as the display device, keyboard or disk drives
POST is the test conducted by BIOS
BIOS chip
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33. Onboard Disk Drive Connectors
IDE Connector - The hard drive, floppy drive and the CD-ROM drive is connected to the motherboard using the on-board disk connectors i.e. Integrated Development Environment (IDE) port on the motherboard . The connector is a normal 40 pin connector.
 SATA Connector - Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) technology is used to connect the newer versions of hard drive.
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34. Super I/O Chip
Controls the serial ports, PS/2 mouse, some keyboard functions and parallel ports. The smaller, slower speed devices are controlled by this chip.
E.g. IT8705F, W83757 IC
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35. CPU Voltage Regulator
 A Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) is installed on the motherboard and regulates the correct voltage that is needed by the CPU.
Facilitates the mounting of different processors with different operating voltages to be mounted on a motherboard.
VRM’s senses the voltage needed by the processors from the processor itself. The voltage required by the processor is supplied to VRM by the processor during startup of the computer.
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36. Practical
Perform the activity mentioned in Lab no. 2 in the text book:
To identify various onboard components, disk drive connectors, CPU voltage regulator and Super I/O chip on the motherboard.
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37. Chipsets and show from CBT
Group of integrated circuits (IC)
Provide interface for various devices such as the I/O devices, CPU, memory, etc
Control all functionalities of the computer
Defines the limitations of the system such as the maximum amount of memory that can be added to the system, the processor to be used, etc
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38. Chipsets Leading manufacturers are nVidia, Intel, AMD, VIA, and SiS
The Intel G41, P45, H55 and the Q43 chipsets are the most common chipsets available today. 64 bit computing technology chipsets are also available today
Modern chipset consists of IOH and ICH only
The chipset controls the data transfers between every component of the system
So the chipset that you choose must support the interface required by your CPU
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39. Intel-Bridge Architecture - I
When Intel started using this architecture it started calling the bridges as “hubs”, the north bridge became MCH (Memory Controller Hub) and the south bridge became ICH (I/O Controller Hub).
When the CPU reads data from a hard drive, the data is transferred from the hard drive to the south bridge, then to the north bridge using the dedicated bus and then to the CPU. Also, the manufacturers call this bus as DMI (Direct Media Interface) or Intel Hub Architecture.
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40. Intel-Bridge Architecture - II
The speed of this dedicated bus depends on the chipset model. For example, on Intel 925X chipset this bus has a maximum transfer speed of 2 GB/s.
The IOH provides support for the two PCIe graphics slots and connects to the CPU via the Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) bus.
The ICH provides the support for the SATA, USB and other system interfaces and is connected to the IOH via the DMI bus.
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41. Question for GD Time Limit – 3 Mins
Define DMI and mention current speed for the same.
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42. DX58SO Motherboard Platform
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43. Question for GD Time Limit – 3 Mins
What is the difference between IOH and ICH and MCH and ICH?
IOH
ICH
MCH
ICH
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44. Manufacturers of Motherboard - I
Manufacturers of motherboards are:
Asus - Asus manufactures motherboards that support different types of processors such as Intel and AMD. The motherboards manufactured by Asus support 64 bit computing technology
Intel - Intel motherboards are available in various configurations and different form factors.
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45. Manufacturers of Motherboard - II
MSI - MSI is well known in for its high performance designs and cutting edge products. MSI's latest motherboard in the Big Bang line is a good example.
Gigabyte - Gigabyte manufactures motherboards that are available for different types of processors such as Intel and AMD. The newer versions of the board support the latest processors such as the dual core processors and the 64 bit processors.
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46. Practical
Perform the activity mentioned in Lab no. 3 in the text book:
To identify make, model and chipset of a motherboard.
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47. Compatible Processors and Motherboards
for Intel products
for AMD products.
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48. Factors for selecting a Motherboard – I
Form Factor – Defines size and shape of board. Choose a case that is large enough to fit the motherboard of the correct form factor
CPU Support – Should support different types of microprocessor and sockets. In the future, if you need to upgrade your processor, you may not have to change the whole motherboard
Memory slots – Should have more number of slots. To support new technology software user can upgrade the system in the future
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49. Factors for selecting a Motherboard – II
Expansion Slots –a motherboard with more number of expansion slots can easily be expanded for supporting the various devices
SATA support – Allows higher transfer rates of data between hard disk and motherboard and should have SATA controller on it.
Number of Ports – Should have more number of USB and other ports to connect different devices to the system. Depending on the type of device to be attached to the system and the port that is required, the board should be purchased.
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50. Factors for selecting a Motherboard – III
Hard Drive transfer speed and RAID support – Should support SATA-II 300 MBps and RAID
Bus Speed – Should have higher speed of FSB and BSB which allows faster transfer rate of data in and out of the processor
QPI and DMI Speed – Should have higher speed e.g. 2.5GT/s
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51. Configuring the Motherboard
Configure motherboard before it is installed in the system
Configuration done with the help of jumpers
Set clock frequency, CPU voltage and other settings
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52. Practical
Perform the activity mentioned in Lab no. 4 in the text book:
To install the motherboard inside a PC.
Click on the image to run the video.
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53. Replace/Upgrade a Motherboard
Involves replacing the motherboard and also some components of the system
Factors that need to be considered before upgrading the motherboard
Power Connector
Memory Support
Hard Disk Support
System Case
Keyboard – may have to use a converter
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54. Practical
Perform the activity mentioned in Lab no. 5 in the text book:
To uninstall the motherboard from a PC.
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55. Troubleshooting Motherboards and discuss from CBT
Various problems with the motherboard:
Instability in a New System
Motherboard has a Crack
System does not work properly after recent repair
System does not start though fans are working
When switched on, the system only beeps or shows POST error
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56. Summary – I
Motherboard is a printed circuit board that is the most important part of a system
Every component of the system connects to the motherboard directly or indirectly
There are different types of motherboard
There are different motherboard form factors
There are different components on the motherboard
Jumpers on motherboard enable you to configure the motherboard
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57. Summary – II
You can connect different parts of the system to the motherboard using the connectors and expansion slots
The final solution came when the chipset manufacturers started using a new approach: using a dedicated high-speed bus between north and south bridges called DMI and connecting the PCI bus devices to the south bridge.
Chipset on a motherboard is a group of integrated circuits and microprocessors
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58. Summary – III
You must configure motherboard using the jumpers, before you perform motherboard installation in the system case
You must install CPU, fan and heat sink on motherboard before you install motherboard
Follow instructions in motherboard manual when performing configuration or installation
You must follow the instructions in the motherboard manual when performing configuration, installation or troubleshooting of the motherboard
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59. Explorative Work
Refer to Internet, reference books or magazine to get the information.
Do not copy the information provided in this text book.
Consult your faculty for further guidance.
Motherboard
Sl.
Make
CPU Socket
Chipset
Memory Support
Available Ports (DVI, HDMI, PCIe, SATA & USB)
Approx. Cost 1 2 3 4 5
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60. Mind Map Draw a mind map to summarize this chapter Release 22/10/2010
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