The motherboard is the main Printed Circuit Board (“PCB”) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. [1] Ultimately, almost every component is attached to the motherboard. Certainly, the most essential components are, namely, the CPU, RAM, ROM, HDD/SDD, NIC, and all ports.
In this post:
1. Construction
Copper is second-best only to silver in the conductivity stakes!
Do all electronic devices have a motherboard? No. The term mainboard describes a device with a single board and no additional expansions or capability, such as controlling boards in laser printers, television sets, washing machines, and other embedded systems with limited expansion abilities.
Motherboards consist of copper circuitry embedded in a substrate (usually fibre-reinforced plastic). The green material is the substrate (it can be other colours). [2]
2. Connection
Computer components must connect to the motherboard to obtain data and electricity.
2.1 Bus
“A computer bus is a physical connection that links a computer’s components on the motherboard. Each bus consists of a circuit between two or more chips, expansion cards and slots, or ports using a series of small wires. These circuits let the components exchange data while also providing power from the motherboard.” [3]
The components are connected in a variety of ways: some are soldered onto the circuit board, while some have special slots. For example, the CPU is seated in a ZIF socket, and RAM modules are installed into specialised memory slots.
2.2 Peripheral card slots
The capabilities of a motherboard can be extended by adding expansion cards. Many of these capabilities are now integrated (“built into”) modern motherboards.
Peripheral Component Interconnect (“PCI”) expansion slots on the motherboard allow expansion cards to be connected to the motherboard to add functionality to the computer. [4]
2.3 Power
The motherboard receives electric power from the PSU.
An additional power source is critical to the operation of your computer: the CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) battery. This battery is generally available at your local supermarket or hardware store; just ask for a CR2032 battery.
This battery will eventually lose power. When this happens, your computer will be unable to maintain its clock and BIOS settings. [5]
3. Integrated
More and more technology is being integrated (built into) into the modern motherboard:
- Disk controllers for SATA drives, and older IDE drives
- Graphics controller with VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort and TV output
- Sound cards
- Ethernet network controller for connection to a LAN
- USB controllers
- Wireless network interface controller
- Bluetooth controller
- Temperature, voltage, and fan-speed sensors that allow software to monitor the health of computer components
References:
- Youtube.com (2023) PCB | At the heart of every electronics device. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukc_kc5OAhw (Accessed: 5 July 2023).
- Wikipedia (2023) Motherboard. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard (Accessed: 4 July 2023).
- Pickle, B. and Christensson, P. (2023) Bus, Definition – What is a computer hardware bus? TechTerms.com. Available at: https://techterms.com/definition/bus (Accessed: 24 October 2023).
- Wikipedia (2023). Peripheral Component Interconnect. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_Component_Interconnect (Accessed: 4 July 2023).
- Stiemer, F. (2023) How to test and change your motherboard’s CMOS battery, PCWorld. Available at: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2072879/to-test-and-change-the-cmos-battery-of-the-mainboard.html (Accessed: 29 October 2023).