Mainboards are the core of the computer's structure. When you build a computer, you plug everything into the main system board, thus the name "mainboard" or even "motherboard" as expansion cards were sometimes called "daughter cards". The mainboard contains a clock oscillator, many chips, capacitors, resisters and and a multitude of slots to insert components. Mainboards support all the other components in the computer including the processor, memory, peripheral cards (EISA, ISA, PCI), video cards (AGP), and I/O ports.
Form Factors
- AT
- Baby AT
- LPX
- ATX
- Mini ATX
- Micro ATX (μATX)
- FlexATX
- NLX
- Proprietary
Mainboard Components
Nearly all mainboards will have the following:
- Mainboard Chipset
- BIOS
- Central Processing Unit (CPU) slot/socket
- System bus (or main bus)
- Memory slots (SIMM, DIMM etc.)
- System Slots
- EIDE Hard Drive controller, bus, connector slots
- Floppy Drive controller, bus, connector slot
- Serial I/O controller, bus, connectors (Serial, Parallel)
- ISA controller, bus, connector slots
- PCI controller, bus, connector slots
- Controller Chipsets
Some systems will have the following additional slots:
- Advanced Graphics Port (AGP)
- Universal Serial Bus (USB) controller & connector slot
- Front Panel Audio, USB
Architectures
Visual Examples
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