Saturday, August 9, 2008

Peripheral Component Interconnect

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) is an industry condition for connecting hardware devices to a computer's central processor. Both Ethernet and Wi-Fi network adapters for desktop and notebook computers usually utilize PCI.

PCI defines the electrical characteristics and signal protocol used for two devices to converse over a computer's central bus. PCI network adapters and other devices be in more than a few different shapes and sizes called "form factors."

Besides traditional Ethernet PCI cards that manufacturers pre-install in desktop computers, ordinary PCI form factors for consumer network devices are:

* Card Bus - also Wi-Fi or Ethernet PC Card (also known as PCMCIA or "credit card") network adapters
* Mini PCI - Wi-Fi network cards fixed inside notebook computers

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Internal bus

In computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem so as to transfers data between computer components within a computer or between computers. Unlike a point-to-point connection, a bus can rationally connect several peripherals in excess of the same set of wires. Each bus defines its set of connectors to bodily plug devices, cards or cables jointly.

Early computer buses were literally similar electrical buses with multiple connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical functionality as a equivalent electrical bus. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit-serial connections, and can be wired in also a multidrop (electrical parallel) or daisy chain topology, or linked by switched hubs, as in the container of USB.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Computer fan

A computer fan can be some fan inside a computer case used for cooling purposes, and may refer to fans that sketch cooler air into the container from the outside, drive out warm air from inside, or move air across a heat sink to cool a exacting component. The use of fans and/or other hardware to cool a computer is sometimes referred to as lively cooling.

Used to inferior the temperature of the computer; a fan is almost always attached to the CPU, and the computer case will usually have several fans to maintain a constant airflow. Liquid cooling can also be used to cool a computer, while it focuses more on individual parts quite than the overall temperature within the chassis.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Video Display Controller

A video display controller which can display foregrounds as well as backgrounds of display patterns on a screen of a video display unit in a plurality of colors . The video display controller comprises a plurality of color in order registers, in each of which a pair of color code data representative of center and backdrop colors of one display pattern are stored. A memory is provided for storing a plurality of prototype data, a plurality of pattern name data every designating one of the display patterns to be displayed on a own one of display portions of the screen, and a plurality of color assortment data each equivalent to a respective one of the display portions.

A sequence controller in sequence reads the pattern data chosen by the pattern name data and the color selection data in agreement with synchronization signals. A color collection control logic circuit selects one of the color information registers in harmony with the color selection data interpret from the memory, and reads one of the pair of color code data from the selected color in sequence register. A color signal generator generates a color signal in accordance with the color code data read from the register and provisions it to the video display unit.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

RAID Storage Controllers

The storage controllers are the set of mechanism that allows you to store programs and data on your PC. The term "permanent" is used to store the data enduringly into the system memory, while temporary holds data awaiting your PC is on. The storage controllers are a very significant part of the PC after all they hold the programs and data on your PC.

The storage subsystem consists of two types of hardware. the storage devices, which are the drives that grasp data. Usually, the systems contain one or more of the following storage devices: one or more hard disk, CD-ROM or CD-RW or DVD drives, and Floppy disk drives, Tape drives and additional media drives, such as Zip disk drives and consequently. Each of these storage devices talks to the PC through an interface, which is used as an internal communication channel used to move information to and from the storage device. The boundary runs between the controller on the storage device, and a matching controller inside the PC system.

The dissimilar types of Storage Controllers in your system are Floppy disk controller, for floppy disk drives, SCSI controller, for SCSI hard disks & CD-ROM drives, Universal Serial Bus controller, for USB devices. A number of of these controllers, such as floppy controllers, are regularly built on the chipset of the motherboard. Industry-standard consumer generally uses the IDE/ATA interface for hard disks, the floppy interface for the floppy drive and USB together storage devices. There are many different parameter of the storage subsystem that has an effect on the capabilities of the PC as a entire

Monday, July 28, 2008

ROM

Read-only memory (usually known by its acronym, ROM) is a class of storage space media used in computers and other electronic devices. Since data stored in ROM cannot be customized, it is mainly used to distribute firmware (software that is very closely tied to exact hardware and improbable to require frequent updates).

Modern semiconductor ROM chips are not right away distinguishable from similar chips like RAM modules, apart from by the part numbers printed on the package.

In its strictest sense, ROM refers only to mask ROM (the oldest type of solid state ROM), which is made-up with the desired data enduringly stored in it, and thus can never be adapted. However, more contemporary types such as EPROM and flash EEPROM can be erased and re-programmed many times; they are still described as "read-only memory" because the reprogramming process is usually infrequent, comparatively slow, and often does not authorize random access writes to individual memory locations, which are likely when reading a ROM.

There are five basic ROM types:

* ROM
* PROM
* EPROM
* EEPROM
* Flash memory

Friday, July 25, 2008

Motherboard

A motherboard is the central or primary printed circuit board (PCB) creation up a multifaceted electronic system, such as a modern computer. It is also known as a mainboard, baseboard, system board, planar board, or, on Apple computers, a logic board, and is now and then abbreviated carelessly as mobo.

Most motherboards shaped today are intended for so-called IBM-compatible computers, which detained over 96% of the global personal computer market in 2005.Motherboards for IBM-compatible computers are specially covered in the PC motherboard article.

A motherboard, like a backplane, provides the electrical relations by which the other mechanism of the system converse, but unlike a backplane also contains the central dispensation unit and other subsystems such as real time clock, and some tangential interfaces.

A typical desktop computer is built with the microprocessor, main memory, and other necessary components on the motherboard. Other components such as external storage, controllers for video display and sound, and peripheral devices are classically attached to the motherboard via edge connectors and cables, although in modern computers it is more and more common to integrate these "peripherals" into the motherboard.