Unit 4 Writing Assignment – Motherboards and Busses 1. The improvement of the motherboard will be limited because of compatibility issue with other hardware. Other devices run at a different speed and have different processing requirement, for example the memory and hard drive; without upgrading these components too will limit the performance of the motherboard. 2. There is a need for the different busses to be on the motherboard for free flow of information processing by way of obtaining different sets of instructions. 3. A 64-bit OS has a higher functionality than a 32-bit, a 32-bit will be needed because of the backward compatibilities of the 64-bit. 4. The following requirements must and can be considered when building a PC: * DO NOT plug anything in unless the computer is fully turned off. * DO NOT install anything unless you are grounded through a wrist strap * DO NOT over-tighten or strip any screws. * Never force anything. If it does not fit or plug in then figure out why. * Wear surgical gloves while putting the PC together
Next
Choose your components. You will need a:
Motherboard
CPU
Memory
Hard drive
CPU Cooler
Graphics card.
Power Supply Unit.

The motherboard should be compatible with any CPU you choose. I recommend gigabyte motherboards.
Choose the CPU first, and then pick a motherboard it will work with.

After you got that selected you will need to find memory. You can choose memory by the motherboard model you have.

You will need 8 Gigabytes of memory. You can get 16GB if you so choose, but it’s not needed.
For Graphics Cards I suggest looking at the reviews. Get one that fits your budget and is the fastest. Google graphics card reviews.

For the Hard Drive I suggest a 500GB or bigger SSD drive. Make sure it is SATA III.
The Power Supply Unit will need to be at least 500 watts. Get one that is compatible with ATX motherboards.

Fans in front of the case should blow air in. Fans in the back of the case should blow hot air out. NO cables or anything else should be in front of the fans. Fans should come with the case. Choose the case you like best, it should be an ATX case.

Unit 4 Motherboard Research Paper

Chipsets: What’s the importance of these? Explain what a chipset does.
In this explanation I will be answering the questions of what is a chipset. What are its functions? What is its importance? What is its influence in the computer’s performance?
A chipset is a designated group of microchips that are designed to work with one or more related functions that were first introduced in 1986 when Chips and Technologies introduced the 82C206.
In the first PCs, the motherboard used discrete integrated circuits. Therefore, many chips were needed to create all the necessary circuitry to make the computer work. After some time, chip manufacturers started to integrate several chips into larger chips. Instead of requiring dozens of small chips, a motherboard could now be built using only a half-dozen big chips.
Around the mid-1990s, motherboards using only two or even one big chip could be built.
With the release of the PCI bus, a new concept, which is still used nowadays, could be used for the first time: the use of bridges. Usually, motherboards have two big chips: the north bridge and the south bridge. Sometimes, some chip manufacturers can integrate the north and south bridges into a single chip; in this case, the motherboard will have just one big integrated circuit. Or, depending on the CPU architecture, it may require only the south bridge chip.
In the past, several different companies provided chipsets for the PC. Nowadays, however, only Intel, AMD, and VIA are still manufacturing chipsets, and they only design products for motherboards that will use their CPUs. (VIA also used to design chipsets for CPUs from both Intel and AMD.) Other companies that used to manufacture chipsets include ATI, NVIDIA, VIA, SiS, ULi/ALi, UMC, and OPTi.
A common confusion is to mix the chipset manufacturer with the motherboard manufacturer. For example, because a motherboard uses a chipset manufactured by Intel does not mean that Intel manufactured this board. ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS, ASRock, Biostar, and also Intel are just some of the many motherboard manufacturers present on the market. So, the motherboard manufacturer buys the chipsets from the chipset manufacturer and builds motherboards.
The north bridge chip, also called MCH (Memory Controller Hub), is connect directly to the CPU and has basically the following functions: * Memory controller (if available) * PCI Express controller (if available) * AGP bus controller (if available) * Interface for data transfer with the south bridge chip
Current Intel CPUs have an integrated memory controller and an integrated PCI Express controller, meaning that these CPUs have an integrated north bridge chip; therefore, they don’t require this chip on the motherboard.
The PCI Express controller embedded in the north bridge chip or in the CPU may provide several lanes. The most common configuration is for it to provide 16 lanes, allowing the motherboard to have one PCI Express x16 slot or two PCI Express x16 slots, each working at x8. Additional PCI Express lanes required to connect the other slots and devices available on the motherboard are provided by the south bridge chip. High-end PCI Express controllers usually provide more than 16 lanes, allowing the motherboard manufacturer to either provide more PCI Express x16 slots for video cards or allow the connection of other slots and devices directly to the north bridge chip or CPU.
The connection between the north bridge and the south bridge is accomplished through a bus. Initially, the PCI bus was used, but later it was replaced by a dedicated bus.
The south bridge chip, also called ICH (I/O Controller Hub) or PCH (Platform Controller Hub) is connected to the north bridge (or the CPU, in the case of current Intel CPUs) and is in charge of controlling I/O devices and on-board devices, such as: * Storage ports (Parallel and Serial ATA ports) * USB ports * On-board audio (*) * On-board LAN (**) * PCI bus (if available) * PCI Express lanes (if available) * Real time clock (RTC) * CMOS memory * Legacy devices such as interrupt controller and DMA controller * ISA slots on old motherboards
(*) If the south bridge has a built-in audio controller, it will need an external chip called a codec (short for coder/decoder) to operate. Some high-end motherboards use an external audio controller, which is connected to the south bridge chip through a PCI Express x1 lane.
(**) If the south bridge has a built-in network controller, it will need an external chip called a PHY (short for physical) to operate. Most motherboards use an external network controller connected to the south bridge chip through a PCI Express x1 lane.
Other integrated devices the motherboard may have, such as additional USB, SATA, and network controllers, will be connected to the south bridge chip through individual PCI Express x1 lanes. (On some motherboards these devices may be connected to the north bridge chip instead, if the PCI Express controller embedded in the north bridge chip has plenty of PCI Express lanes).
The south bridge is also connected to two other chips available on the motherboard: the ROM chip, also known as the BIOS chip (BIOS is one of the programs written inside this chip), and the Super I/O chip, which is in charge of controlling legacy devices such as serial ports, parallel ports, floppy disk drives, and PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse.
When the bridge concept started being used, the communication between the north bridge and the south bridge was done through the PCI bus. The problem with this approach is that the bandwidth available for the PCI bus (132 MB/s) will be shared between all PCI devices in the system and all devices hooked to the south bridge, especially hard disk drives.
When high-end video cards (at that time, video cards were PCI) and high-performance hard disk drives were launched, a bottleneck situation arose. For high-end video cards, the solution was the creation of a new bus connected directly to the north bridge, called AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port). This way the video card was not connected to the PCI bus and performance was not compromised.
The final solution came when the chipset manufacturers started utilizing a new approach: using a dedicated high-speed connection between north and south bridges and connecting the PCI devices to the south bridge. This is the architecture that is used today. Standard PCI slots, if available, are connected to the south bridge. PCI Express lanes can be available on both the north bridge chip and the south bridge chip. Usually, PCI Express lanes available on the north bridge chip are used for video cards, while the lanes available on the south bridge chip are used to connect slower slots and on-board devices, such as additional USB, SATA, and network controllers. The configuration of this dedicated connection depends on the chipset model.
Motherboard bus:
How does this technology help data travel from component to component?

The motherboard bus is a set of wires that allows one part of the motherboard to connect and communicate with other parts of the motherboard, including the central processing unit (CPU). It also serves as an interface between the CPU and various external devices.

Component Integration
Component integration has eliminated the need for individual component hard ware and the heat they produce. The elimination of those two things has enabled the manufacturers to reduce the size of today’s computers enabling the development of today’s laptops and other portable computing devices.

References:
Class notes and lectures
Torres, G. (2012). Everything you need to know about chipset http://www.hardwaresecret.com/article http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/m/motherboard.htm
http://www.electronics.howsstuffworks.com/how