A motherboard is one of the most essential parts of a computer system. It holds together many of the crucial components of a computer, including the central processing unit (CPU), memory and connectors for input and output devices.Alternatively referred to as the mb, mainboard, mobo, mobd, backplane board,base board, main circuit board, planar board, system board, or a logic boardon Apple computers. The motherboard is a printed circuit board that is the foundation of a computer, located at the bottom of the computer case. It allocates power to the CPU, RAM, and all other computer hardware components. Most importantly, the motherboard allows hardware components to communicate with one another.Below is a picture of the ASUS P5AD2-E motherboard with names of each major component of the motherboard. Clicking on the image below gives you a larger more detailed version of the picture below. A CPU socket - the actual CPU is directly soldered onto this socket. Since high speed CPU's generate a lot of heat, there are heat sinks and mounting points for fans right next to the CPU socket. A power connector to distribute power to the CPU and other components.Slots for the system's main memory, typically in the form of DRAM chips. A chip forms an interface between the CPU, the main memory and other components. On many types of motherboards this is referred to as the Northbridge. This chip also contains a large heat sink. A second chip controls the input and output (I/O) functions. It is not connected directly to the CPU but to the Northbridge. This I/O controller is referred to as the Southbridge. The Northbridge and Southbridge combined are referred to as the chipset. Several connectors, which provide the physical interface between input and output devices and the motherboard. The Southbridge handles these connections.Slots for one or more hard drives to store files. The most common types of connections are Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA).A Read-only memory (ROM) chip, which contains the firmware, or startup instructions for the computer system. This is also called the BIOS.A slot for a video or graphics card. There are a number of different types of slots, including Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) and Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe). Additional slots to connect hardware in the form of Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slots.There are certainly a lot of acronyms to get used to! Don't worry too much about trying to remember all the parts and their acronyms. The key is to remember that the motherboard contains the central processing unit, the memory, and all the connectors to the rest of the hardware of the computer system. The board is the 'mother' of all components - that's where it gets its name.
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