A list is given below that contains all motherboard components. Some common components are explained below:
- Heat sink
- Parallel port
- Back pane connectors
- Capacitor
- Northbridge
- Southbridge
- Jumpers
- Integrated circuit
- PCI slot
- 4-pin power connector
- Inductor
- CPU socket
- 3-pin case fan connectors
- Screw hole
- RAID
- System panel connectors
- Serial port connector
- USB headers
- 1394 headers
- SPDIF
- Memory slot
- Serial ATA connections
- Super Input/Output
- Floppy connection
- IDE /ATA disk drive main connection
Heat sink: It is a device that is designed with built-in fans to keep hot components, such as a processor, CPU at an appropriate temperature. It is attached to the processor and made by metal like copper or aluminum alloy. The active and passive are two types of the heat sink. The combination of fan and heat sink is known as an active heat sink, and a heat sink without a fan is called a passive heat sink. Furthermore, it is also used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems, GPUs, and video card processors and mainly used in all CPUs.
Parallel port: Most of the old printers are used parallel port to connect. It uses more than one wire to send or receive a collection of bits of data in one go where serial port uses one wire. Additionally, a 25-pin female DB connector is used by parallel ports.
Back pane connectors: It is a connection that specifies a link between a connector and a plug into a jack or port. For example, a mouse, keyboard, monitor, all must be connected to the computer before being used.
Capacitor: It is a two-terminal electrical component that is used to store energy electrostatically in an electric field. It is originally known as condenser. When a direct current (DC) enters in the capacitor, a positive charge is generated on the plate or collection of plates where a negative charge is generated on the other. The capacitors are commonly used in electronic circuits to block direct current and pass alternative current.
Northbridge: It is an integrated circuit within the chipset on the motherboard that is responsible for providing a connection between AGP, CPU interface, and memory. Unlike southbridge, it is directly connected to the CPU interface, AGP, and memory. The primary task of northbridge is to provide communication between CPU and external devices via buses.
Southbridge: It is an integrated circuit on the motherboard that is designed for a single function and manufactured as a single unit. It is important for I/O controller, hard drive controller, and integrated hardware.
Jumpers: It is a tiny metal connector that allows the computer to close an electrical circuit, by which electricity can flow to the certain areas of the circuit board. It comprises a collection of small pins that can be covered with a jumper block. It is also an alternative for a dual in-line package switch, and it contains two or more connecting points that control the electrical circuit board.
Integrated circuit: It is a small chip that is also known as a monolithic integrated circuit, microchip, or a bare chip. It acts as an oscillator, amplifier, microprocessor, or even memory. It includes multiple circuits, pathways, logic gates, and other components that perform together for a specific function.
On 7 May 1952, the first IC was introduced by British radar engineer Geoffrey Dummer. Later, Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce developed it, and successfully demonstrated on 12 September 1958.
PCI slot: It allows users to add internal components to a desktop computer. In 1992, it was designed and introduced by Intel. It stands for Peripheral Component Interface that is used to connect the addition of PCI devices such as modems, sound cards, video cards, and network hardware cards.
Memory slot: A memory slot allows computer memory (RAM) to be inserted into the computer. Most of the motherboards include two to four memory slots that specify the type of RAM with the computer. The most common types of RAM for desktop computers are DDR SDRAM, and SODIMM for laptop computers, including different types and speeds.
USB headers: It is a collection of pins located on a motherboard that allows additional USB ports to be inserted to the computer.
Super I/O: It is an integrated circuit that started to be used on the motherboards of a personal computer. It was found on an expansion card and introduced in the late 1980s. Later, it was embedded into the motherboard, and it combines interfaces for a variety of low-bandwidth devices. It handles the less prominent computer input/output devices such as Serial port UART, Intrusion detection, Game port, Infrared, Floppy disk controller, etc.
Serial port connector: It is an interface that is used to transmit or receive one-bit data at a time on the computer. Mostly IBM compatible computers have serial ports as a communication port. For instance, a modem may connect with COM port1 and a mouse connect to COM port2.
Serial ATA connections: It is a replacement for the parallel ATA interface that was used in IBM compatible computers, which stands for serial AT attachment. The first version 1.0 of SATA was introduced in August 2001. Within a disk array, it has the ability to provide 1.5 Gbps of performance to each drive. It provides a small cable that helps to make cable routing an easier way. Furthermore, it provides better airflow as compared to older ribbon cables used with ATA drives.
System panel connectors: It is commonly referred to as a fpanel or front panel connector that controls a computer reset button, power button, case speaker, key lock, and LED’s. It includes two color-coded wire cables that help to recognize where they need to connect with the motherboard front panel. There are different types of system panel cables, such as HDD LED, PLED, PWRSW, Reset SW, Speaker, etc.