1.1. Identifying Components of Motherboards

The spine of the computer is the motherboard, otherwise known as the system board (and less commonly referred to as the planar board). This is the olive green or brown circuit board that lines the bottom of the computer. It is the most important component in the computer because it connects all the other components of a PC together. Figure 1.1 shows a typical PC system board, as seen from above. All other components are attached to this circuit board. On the system board, you will find the central processing unit (CPU), underlying circuitry, expansion slots, video components, random access memory (RAM) slots, and a variety of other chips.

Figure 1.1. A typical system board

1.1.1. Types of System ...

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