Unit 4 assignment 1: Video summary 2

This video is about motherboards different types of form factors like ATX, BTX, and NLX. Its
also about communication buses, connectors and what a motherboard contains. What to do while
buying a motherboard. Not all CPUS and motherboards are compatible dont buy a motherboard
without knowing a CPU that fits it. Dont even buy the case without knowing your motherboard.
Size and shape are determined by the form factor of the motherboard.

There are three form factors of primary interest today. And one of them is the ATX form factor.
ATX replaced the older AT form factor. Reasons the ATX is better it is smaller, better
organization which makes it easier to work on and it provides much more support for a wide
variety of I/O devices. The BTX form factor is compatible with all of the ATX functions but the
BTX has been designed to promote better air flow. Another form factor is the NLX the NLX is
used on low end personal computers and supports riser cards. Riser cards fit into expansion slots,
provides connectors for additional expansion slots and are also known as daughter boards.

If you look at the bottom of the motherboard youll see copper tracing all across it these tracings
make up the bus system. Buses connects various components and allows delivery of power and
data. The system bus is the largest and fastest bus and connects motherboard to CPU. On the
motherboard you want to be able to identify various connectors like PI power, 40 pin IDE, 34 pin
floppy drive, SATA, and 50 or 68 pin SCSI.

Topics

Motherboards
ATX form factor
BTX form factor
NLX form factor
Communication buses
Connectors
Expansion slots

Terms used in video clip 1.04 with definitions:

CPU: control processor unit
P1: power connector.

DIMM: memory slots.

AGP: accelerated graphics port.
PCI: peripheral component interconnect.
IDE: integrated drive electronics.
SATA: serial advanced technology attachment.
Soft power button: front of computer does not immediately cut
power.
Power switch: back of the computer immediately cuts power.
Wake on LAN is a technology that allows a network professional to
remotely power on a computer or to wake it up from sleep mode.
SCSI: Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) is a set of parallel
interface standards developed by the American National Standards
Institute (ANSI) for attaching printers, disk drives, scanners and
other peripherals to computers.
ISA: Industry Standard Architecture
MCA: Micro Channel Architecture
EISA: (Extended Industry Standard Architecture) is a standard bus
(computer interconnection) architecture that extends the ISA
standard to a 32-bit interface.
VESA local bus: VESA Local Bus (sometimes called the VESA VL
bus) is a standard interface between your computer and its
expansion slot that provides faster data flow between the devices
controlled by the expansion cards and your computer's
microprocessor.
PCIx: faster

PCIe: express fastest expected to replace AGP.