What exactly is a computer?

According to research done in 2007 roughly 78% of all US households have a computer and almost 100% of businesses use a computer to some extent.  To most a computer is used for sending e-mail and surfing the internet at the very least, but other common uses include video games, media creation, and office usage such as spreadsheets and databases.  In today's world people both young and old know how to "use" a computer but many do not know what it's made up of.  Big Box stores such as Best Buy sell computers ready to go, just plug in the cables and turn it on, but what happens if there is a problem?  Do you know what to check or do you fork out the money to take it in and have it checked out?  Knowing what your computer is made up of can help narrow down the issue and in the end could save you a chunk of money.  That being said today's post is going to cover the parts of a computer and the basics on what each part does.

Motherboard - You can consider the motherboard the interstate of the computer.  It connects all the individual parts of the computer and routes requests between them.  The Motherboard has several connections on it which include but are not limited to PCI, PCI-E, Memory,  and the CPU socket, it also contains the BIOS and both the Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets.  Most newer motherboards also have an integrated HD sound, as well as SATA ports for connecting hard drives and CD/DVD or Blu-Ray drives.  You will also usually find between 2-8 USB ports and possibly a Firewire port.

Central Processing Unit - Often referred to as CPU or just Processor , the central processing unit is the brains of the computer.  Everything a computer needs to do must pass through the processor.  With new processors speed is usually not an issue, however efficiency is, for example a 2.0Ghz Core2Duo from Pentium could out perform a Pentium 4 2.0Ghz processor with HyperThreading even though the speed of the clock cycles are identical.  Today's PCs usually come with a dual-core processor, however offerings of triple or even quad-core processors are available.  Keep in mind that more cores don't mean a faster PC, the programs you use have to be coded to take advantage of the extra cores, but it does mean that multi-tasking on a PC with a multi-core processor is less taxing on the system as it can spread out it's requests over multiple cores.  Processors plug into the Processor Socket on the motherboard.  Because there are MANY different types of CPU sockets, you will want to ensure if you need to replace a motherboard that you buy one that matches the socket type your processor uses.

Video Card - the video card provides processing power to graphics.  Video cards come in 2 flavors, integrated or add-on.  Today's integrated graphics cards are usually lower in power and are not suitable to run high end graphics that video games often require, however they are suitable for watching HD content online as well as running your desktop and other less graphics intensive tasks.  Add-On cards such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 or Radeon X5870 are used for graphics intensive games using 3D rendering and particle effects due mostly to an onboard GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and a large amount of fast memory.  Add-On cards are also usually required for Graphics Artists and CAD but use a type of video card designed specifically for those tasks.  Add-On cards plug into the PCI or PCI-E slot in a motherboard.

Memory - RAM or Random Access Memory is used as a type of temporary storage for instructions programs use to operate.  Because the storage is temporary instructions are constantly written and removed from RAM as the computer moves from task to task.  Modern PC bought at a store usually have between 2-4GB of RAM, however some PCs can handle up 8-32GB RAM.  In my opinion most PCs should have 4GB as this will usually do the job and no further upgrades will be needed.  Personally I have 6GB in my laptop and if I have multiple apps open and working I can push the memory in use past 4GB easily.  Another thing to keep in mind is that all RAM is not created equally, there is DDR2, DDR3, different latency ratings, etc...  Please review the type of RAM in your PC and find what is compatible before going out and purchasing any upgrades.  RAM sockets on the motherboard are usually pared in 2s or 3s for dual or triple channel configuration.

Power Supply - this is pretty self explanatory.  This supplies power to all components in a computer, lower end computers usually use less power and have a smaller power supply, whereas higher end PCs consume much more power and need larger power supplies.

Hard Drive - the hard drive or hard disk stores program information such as your operating system, games, applications, etc...  Without a hard disk to install programs onto your computer would be useless, sure you could turn it on, but there would be no program to send instructions to the processor to tell everything what it needed to do.  Basic instructions are loaded into the BIOS so you can boot from a disk when installing an operating system, but beyond that a computer would be just an expensive box with no hard drive.  Hard Drives plug into the SATA port on the motherboard. 

CD/DVD and Blu-Ray drives - Just like your DVD player at home you can put in a disk and play a movie, however you can also install software from a DVD and burn data onto CDs and DVDs.  Newer computers are coming with Blu-Ray drives for high definition movie watching and because of the vastly increased storage capacity over the older DVD format.  The CD/DVD or Blu-Ray drive plugs into a SATA port on the motherboard, though you can still find drives that use the older IDE connection on the motherboard.

Network Interface Card - Also called a NIC comes in two flavors, Ethernet and Wireless.  Ethernet cards have a phone jack type of interface on the back and use an Ethernet cable to plug into your modem or router.  Wireless cards usually have an antenna used to connect to a wireless router.   Without one or the other you could not connect to the internet or create a home network.  Many modern motherboards have a built in ethernet port, however you can purchase add-on cards that use either the PCI or PCI-E slot on a motherboard.

USB - Universal Serial Bus is a type of connection used to connect external hard drives, flash drives, keyboards, a mouse, web cams, digital cameras, just about anything, you can even buy a cup warmer.  The connection is a highly recognizable rectangle and can usually be found on both the front and back of a computer.

Audio Jacks - these are used to plug in speakers, headphones, a microphone, or even connect to an external receiver via RCA or Optical connections.

That about covers the basics of what hardware makes up a computer.  I hope you found it informative, in the future I hope to be able to bring you some videos on how to put all the parts together and build your own computer.

Thanks for visiting,

M3pheston