Taking Care of Your Motherboard
The first step in taking care of your computer¡¯s motherboard, is to make sure that your system settings are ¡°backed up¡±. This can be accomplished by saving the computer¡¯s BIOS settings, either by writing down the settings or using a backup utility software to save this information to a file.
Another way in which to take care of your motherboard is make sure all the connections such as cables or expansion cards are secure.
You can clean your motherboard yourself only if you know what to do. Gently using compressed air can get rid or dust and dirt that has accumulated.
Motherboard Standards
Numerous standards exist for a motherboard, other than just its form factor. They exist to ensure the your desktop computer will be assembled and function correctly. These standards include:
¡¤ A real time clock chip that retains the system¡¯s time and settings.
¡¤ A BIOS chip to oversee the main activities of the computer.
¡¤ A chipset to connect the CPU to the rest of the computer
¡¤ A microprocessor socket to establish the type of CPU to use.
Motherboard Bridges
When shopping for a new motherboard, you might hear the phrase, ¡°motherboard bridges¡±. A motherboard bridge is just an arbitrary way of dividing the motherboard into two components. The North Bridge of the motherboard is more concerned with speed such as the CPU, and are all the motherboard components attached north of the PCI bus. The South Bridge, or anything south of the PCI bus of the motherboard deals mostly with slower connects such as the IDE (hard drive) and USB.
Taking Care of Your CPU
The two main problems that a computer user will run into in terms of maintenance is heat and dust. As the CPU is accessed, the temperature within your computer can rise to a level that might damage its components, causing it to not function efficiently or burn out completely.
CPU¡¯s have a built in fan and ¡°heat sink¡± which will help to disperse the heat generated by the CPU and other computer components.
Anyone has seen how dust can coat furniture and windows, now imagine this same layer of dust coating your CPU. Not only will this layer of dust coat everything, but cause some parts of the computer to stop working effectively. This layer of dust can be removed using compressed air sprayed from a can bought at your local computer store.
Overclocking a CPU
Many people who would like their processor to run at a higher speed, suggest overclocking. For example, overclocking involves changing the processor that ran at 1.4 GHz to 1.5 GHz. By doing this the processor will run at a faster rate.
You should only consider overclocking your processor if you know what you are doing. Even though there is only a small chance the computer might become damaged by overclocking, a chance still exists.
When you have decided to overclock your computer, consult the manufacturer¡¯s website, and make sure there is a cooling fan installed within your system. With the higher speed, an overclocked system will produce more heat.
Form Factors Continued
How the motherboard is assembled is called its form factor. It is important to adhere to the form factor because it will determine exactly where each component of the motherboard will go. Thus the form factor will determine the size of the computer and its general shape.
There are mainly 12 different form factors for motherboards, but only three to four of them have become popular. These form factors include the AT, Baby AT, ATX, and BTX.
Choosing Between Pentium and Celeron Computers
If you are preparing a trip to the computer store and not sure how to choose between a Pentium or Celeron CPU, there are a few small differences to take note of. First of all, the Celeron has as its core a Pentium 4 processor. Another notable difference is the decrease in cache memory that Celeron computers have when compared to Pentium computers. Overall, Pentiums will generally have higher clock and bus speeds when tested against Celeron computers.
The History of the CPU
The central processing unit is responsible for coordinating all of the activities of the computer. The CPU or microprocessor was first released as a single chip by the Intel Corporation in 1971. This chip was called the Intel 4004 and was extremely slow compared to today¡¯s standards.
From this stage, Intel went on to release the Intel 8080 in 1974, and the Intel 8088 in 1979. The Intel 8088 was incorporated into IBM computers, and Intel went on to make the 80286, 80386, and 80486. Computers with these types of chips were referred to as 286, 386, and 486 computers respectively. After the 486 chips, came the introduction of the Pentiums I, II, and III, and IV microprocessors. The Pentium M and D microprocessors were released in 2004 and 2005.
AMD Central Processing Units
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) first started building central processing units for IBM computers in 1982 along with Intel. AMD and Intel were both to supply IBM with 8086 and 8088 processors. However, Intel eventually pulled out of this arrangement resulting in a court battle between the two companies.
The first microprocessor solely created by AMD was launched in 1995 and called the AMD K5. The K5 was not as fast as the products being released by Intel, and AMD rectified this by purchasing NexGen to design its AMD K6 processor. The company still had not achieve the popularity it was hoping for and went on to produce the AMD Athlon K7. The K7 increased the popularity of AMD processors and it became a competitor of Intel for anyone wanting a system with a budget microprocessor. AMD continues to manufacture the Athlon line, and the last microprocessor by the company was the AMD Turion 64.
CPU Cache
The ¡°CPU cache¡± is a term that is often discussed in regards to computers. Having the right amount of CPU cache will help to speed up your computer.
Basically the CPU cache functions to store data that the CPU frequently requests. By doing so, the CPU will not have to got through the more lengthy process of requesting information from the main memory and sending it through the memory bus.
CPUs use a Level 2 cache system in which data that has not been requested as often will be stored at this level. The Level 2 cache is not as fast as a Level 1 cache, but it is faster than have the computer request information through main memory.
Attachments to the Motherboard
The motherboard consists of numerous components necessary for your computer to function. It is not possible to see the motherboard without taking the computer apart, and only a trained computer technologist should venture to do so.
The motherboard in your computer will have Universal Serial Bus (USB) or FireWire ports attached to it.
It will also have an Accelerated Graphics Port attached that is necessary for the computer¡¯s video card.
There are also PCI connectors for network, audio, and video cards to attach.
Lastly, the motherboard will have an Integrated Drive Electronics attachment for the hard drive.
Intel Celeron Microprocessors
While marketing its Pentium line of microprocessors, Intel also released in 1998 the Intel Celeron microprocessor, which was reduced in price compared to the price of the Pentium microprocessor. It was designed using a Pentium II microprocessor as its blueprint. The Celeron microprocessors were not popular until the release of the Mendocino Celerons with L2 cache, which was previously lacking in the original Celeron chip. The last Intel Celeron microprocessor released is Intel Celeron D and Celeron M or Mobile, with a 1.2-1.6 GHz clock speed.