Chapter 2/ Understanding Motherboards and BIOS

Question 1

Tell me about ATX motherboards

Answer 1

the standard used in many systems since 1995 and is still used today. It added capabilities and improved on the original AT motherboard design.

Question 2

Tell me about Micro-ATX motherboards

Answer 2

smaller version of the ATC and is very popular with desktop computers. it is designed to be backwards compatible with the ATX form factor so that it can fit in any ATX case and has the same power connectors. Because it is smaller, it has fewer expansion slots

Question 3

What are the three types of ITX motherboards

Answer 3

Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX, and Pico-ITX

Question 4

What type of motherboard is the most common in desktop PCs?

Answer 4

ATX

Question 5

How can you identify a SATA data connection?

Answer 5

the connector is shaped like an L

Question 6

What is a Bus?

Answer 6

a bus refers to the connection between two or more components and it is used to transfer data between these components. A computer has multiple busses that often work independently of each other .

Question 7

What is the Back side bus?

Answer 7

the connection between the CPU and its internal cache memory

Question 8

What is the Front side bus?

Answer 8

the connection between the CPR and the supporting chipset on the motherboard. the speed of this is frequently used to identify the speed of the CPU.

Question 9

What is a hertz (Hz)?

Answer 9

how many times a signal can go up, down and return to the starting point in one second.

Question 10

What is a Chipset?

Answer 10

one or more ICs that provide the primary interface between the CPU and the rest of the system

Question 11

What are the functions of the North Bridge?

Answer 11

Also called the Memory Controller Hub (MCH), the primary interface for high-speed devices such as the CPU, RAM and, if it exists, a dedicated graphics slot. On newer processors, the CPU has taken over the north bridge

Question 12

What are the functions of the South Bridge?

Answer 12

the South Bridge provides an interface to low-speed devices, which is almost everything in the system, except the RAM and dedicated Graphics Slot. Sometimes also called the I/O Controller Hub

Question 13

What is the Super I/O?

Answer 13

A separate chip that provides connection to different types of legacy I/O devices via a serial port, a parallel port, the keyboard, or the mouse.