1. Parts Inside the Computer Techie Terms you will see during your research project

2. Circuit Board Motherboard-piece of circuit board that allows the different parts inside a computer to communicate with one another

3. Hard Drives Serial-ATA (SATA)-spinning hard drives that store permanent information such as software and documents Solid Slate Drives-not moving, like a jump drive

4. Expansion Slots (Desktop) PCI Express (x2, x4, x8, x16)-room for expansion on such things as sound, video, or network cards

5. Expansion Slots (Laptop) ExpressCard

6. RAM-Random Access Memory Allows you to do more than one thing at a time, the more RAM the faster your computer will be Old: DDR2 New: DDR3 http://www.crucial.com http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/ module2e1.htm http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/ module2e1.htm

7. Optical Drives Old: CD-RW, DVD+-RW New: Dual Layer DVD recorders, BluRay*, HD-DVD* *These are so cutting edge, they may not be worth the price yet.

8. Power Power Supplies: higher wattage=more expansion and more power consumption Batteries: many different sizes and kinds

9. Cooling Fans Heat Sinks-a coil like a radiator for a car Liquid Cooling-like anti-freeze for car

10. Wireless Networking Old: 802.11g New: 802.11n

11. Wired Networking Old: 100 mbit/sec New: gigabit (1000 mbit/sec)

12. Connecting Peripherals Old: USB, Firewire-a faster usb connection New: Bluetooth-wireless

13. Central Processing Unit CPU The brains of your computer – Pentium – Dual Core – Core 2 Duo Tri Quad – I I3, i5, i7 and i9

14. Sizes Byte Bit 8 bytes=1 Bit Mega bit Mega Byte = MB Gigabyte = 1024 MB Terabyte = 1000 GB