Unit 2: P1

Unit 2 

P1: Internal Components

Processors

A central processor unit (CPU) is one of the most important components within a computer system, as it processes data, controls the flow of the programs and components, it is placed directly into the CPU socket on the motherboard where it is held by pins which are on the underside of the CPU. It also has a heat sink and fan to stop the CPU getting overheated. Every motherboard has specific type of CPU which is compatible with it, that is why it very important to check if the CPU is compatible with motherboard before you upgrades. Intel core i7 is one of the fastest processor available.

Data Bus

A way data is transferred between one component to another component on the motherboard, or can be between two computer system. This can be data transferring information from the CPU to other components with the computer system. The components are all designed to handle so many bits of data at a time. 32-bits is used by normal data bus, this means that 32bits of data can only travel through a data bus per second. 

  

Control Bus

Organises data that is being sent and also data that is being received from and to all the components in the computer system.

Address Bus

It is a computer bus that transfers data about all the different address location in a memory to make the data usable in the future.

Motherboard

Motherboard is a very important component because it holds some of the crucial components of the computer system, such as the CPU, RAM etc. and it also provides connectors for other peripherals.

Internal Memory: RAM, ROM & Cache

RAM also known as Random-access memory stores temporally data and programs which can be accessed by the CPU. The bigger the RAM means it has more capacity and can process large programs and files. The speed of the memory impacts how much data is processed. The simple instructions for booting and loading the operating system are all stores in the ROM (read only memory).PROM, EPROM and EEPROM are all the types of ROM. E.g. PROM is a device that uses high voltage to destroy or create internal links within the chip. Cache is a very fast memory that is built in a CPU. L1 Cache is memory built into the CPU to help ease computer performance, by accessing frequently used data into L1 cache, this improves process requests faster. L2 and L3 cache has been built into the motherboard, they perform the same function as a L1 cache but are much slower, and however they are faster than RAM

Power supply

The job for this component is to change the power provided from the outlet, into power that can be used to run components within the computer system

Fan and Heat sink or cooling

The heat sink is created to lower the temperature of the CPU. The FAN is also another component to keep the parts of the computer cool. For example it will keep the power supply cool and also stops the CPU from overheating.

BIOS

BIOS is software that is stored on a small memory chip on the motherboard. It instructs the computer on how to perform a number of basic functions such as booting. BIOS is also used to recognise and configure the hardware in a computer system, it also allows the hardware to communicate with the computer system. During the booting up process the configuration of the computer is checked, after all the checks have been complete BIOS then lets the OS take control.

Network Card

Network card is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. A network card's job is to monitor the traffic passing it through the network. When it recognises a data addressed to its IP address, it will accept the packet and pass it on to the computer system.

Graphics Card

A graphics card is a component which generates a feed of output images which is displayed on to the monitor. Without a graphics card it would be very hard to play game on your computer because the computer will not be able to handle the graphics, causing the game to constantly freeze.

SATA, IDE, EIDE, Master and Slave Drives

The primary IDE controls the hard drive. It also controls the electronic interface between a motherboard data path and the hard drive. The EIDE is an improved IDE cable which can support bigger drivers and faster access. The master drive controls the traffic on for the IDE cable. The master drive maintains the data and then passes it on to the slave drive. The only thing the slave drive does is see data that is passed to it, the slave drive does not need to be there as its only job is to see what is being sent to it.

Cabling

A coaxial cable is a cable that has an inner conductor surrounded by layers of insulating tubes. Twisted pair cabling is type of wiring that contains two individual wires that are twisted around one another. The twisted pair is twisted around one another to avoid crosstalk. USB (Universal Serial Bus) was created to connect computer peripherals such as keyboard, mouse, web cams, speakers etc. are all used to communicate with your computer by USB. Many other devices such as smart phones also use USB cable to connect their smart phone to the computer so the user is able to transfer data to and from their device. Parallel ports have 25-pin connector, which is used to connect printers or other devices that need high bandwidth. Serial Ports have 8-pin connectors which is used to connect peripherals such as mice of modem. Serial port is typically the slowest port there is on a computer system. Latest computers now have replaced serial ports for USB as it faster and more compatible.  

Ports

Ports allow connecting cables to the computer or other devices such as routers or other peripheral devices. There are many different types of ports on a computer system. USB ports were created to send data quickly from the computer to the peripheral. Ethernet ports are created to send and receive data out through the local area network, using the Ethernet cable.

Backup Storage

Backup storage is a storage area which allows users to back data on their computer systems to an hard disk drive, USB pen sticks, CD/DVD or a flash memory. Users can also back up their data to the cloud which doesn't require the users to connect anything to their computer systems. Software application, documents, data anything stored on the computer system can all be backed up.

Hard Drive: is a data storage component which is used to read and write digital data on to it. Inside a hard drive there is a disk, one on top of another, these two disks rapidly rotates, there is also an arm which reads and writes data onto the disk, by moving up to the edge of the disk to the middle of the disk. A SATA 2 hard drive will read or write on an average between 40 megabytes per second to 180 megabytes per second. SSD solid state drivers use flash memory to read at speeds around 150 to 580 megabytes per second, which is for high performance SATA3 drives. The speed in which the hard drive reads the data will depend on the way the files are organised on the disk inside of the hard drive. Files will be scattered all over the hard disk platter, the reading and writing arm will have to move around the disk until it find the files. Information that are on the outer side of the hard disk platter will be quicker to read and write and the information that is inner will take longer, this is because the reading and writing arm starts off going around the outer side of hard disk platter, it then makes its way down to the inner of the hard disk platter. A typical data transfer rate for a hard drive is up to 1,030 megabytes per second.

USB Flash Drive: is a small data storage device that is compatible with any computer system. A USB flash drive reads and writes data in megabytes per second, the reading speed is usually faster than the writing speed, it usually depends on the size of the file you trying to transfer. High performance USB flash drives can read data at 68 megabytes per second and write at 46 megabytes per second, but cannot manage to read and write as fast as smaller data. This depends on the type of USB you get as it can differ in performance. The data transfer rate for a USB flash drive is 3.2GB per second.

CD/DVD: CD have been mainly been used to store data which is capable of containing 700mb of data and has a transfer rate of 11.080 megabytes. However a DVD are designed to store large amount of data, it can store up to 4.7 GB on to one disk  

Flash Memory Card: Is a small storage device which is used to store data such as pictures, audio and video for use on portable devices or remote computing devices. There many capacity sizes for this storage device they can start from 1BG for Micro SD to 32GB SDXC card. The speed for will also depend on the size. For example a 1GB Micro SD as the data will take longer for it to process.

Peripherals (Output & Input Devices)

Output Devices are the peripherals that output data from the computer, monitor, printer and speakers are all out put devices. For example a printer creates a hard copy of a document that the computer has created

Input device is any peripheral that sends data to the computer, without input device the user will not be able to interact with the computer, keyboard, mouse, scanner and web cam are all input devices because they all send date to the computer.

(this task was done on as a leaflet, due to copyright I have not included the images I used for this assignment)
"note you may be asked to expand on some of the points, so try to add more to the assignment. Also remember not to copy word for word, as their are now software to check for plagiarism, when marking the assignment, try to complete the assignment your own way." [I am not encouraging you to copy this piece is here for educational purposes]