MOBO slots

[Dak]

Im curiouse; what are all of those little slots on my mobo actually for? Does my mobo have some kind of untapped potential?

 

I found a photo of my mobo on the net, and have annotated it to the best of my abilities; if anyone could fill in the gaps, espesially as to the mysteriouse green thing, which has intregued me mightily, that would be appreciated.

 

cheers

[Callipygous]

the thing marked cmos is the battery that powers cmos. keeps the clock up to date when you turn it off, saves various other minor settings. take that out for a bit if you change you bios password and then forget it : P

 

the "hmm summore" is known as ISA. it was the standard before PCI. used for earlier cards, if you happen to have one. doesnt really show up on the newest boards.

 

the big green plastic thing is actually a light metal, like aluminum, not sure exactly what kind of metal, but its a heat sink. transmits heat from the thing under it, which i forget the name of because i havent messed with this stuff in a long time, up into itself where its strange design results in a lot of surface area and therefore a lot of heat loss into the air. it keeps that handy little component from catching fire.

 

 

as for your ribbon connectors (IDE slots) the two big ones are for harddrives and cd rom drives, and things like that. the small one is for floppy drives.

 

the ram slots are different. if you get something besides SDRAM the little ridges will be in different spots. modern ram has one ridge, which is slightly off center to keep you from putting it in backwards. using a file to put the ridge in the right spot will NOT work. they are not compatable. it will, however, fry your memory and/or motherboard.

 

 

oh yeah, and im not sure what the little brown slot is, although i have seen it before. i dont know what its used for or where it falls in the technology timeline, but a safe bet would be that its just another standard used for some cards. im betting if you dont know what it is then you probably dont have any use for it, so ive never worried about it : P

[Molotov]

Yeah, Callipygous has it pretty much covered.

 

I'll add that the under the green heatsink is the northbridge chip. It controls the memory and AGP bus.

 

And the small brown slot is an audio/modem riser slot. Its part of the PCI bus and is usually used for cheap software based modems. I don't recommend using it because it will kill your PC's performance.

[Dak]

Cheers guys -- it seems a lot less mysteriouse and alien now

 

I keep meaning to have a go at building a computer on of these days, so that info should come in handy.

[Callipygous]

its really very easy to build a comp. get all the right pieces (you can run a list by us if your unsure), know how to use a screwdriver, and everything pretty much goes into whereever you can make it fit without forcing it...

[Dak]

Yeah, I'v changed some bits over before, but never the whole thing at once, and there are some bits that i've never played with before.

 

I'm a tad put off by the fact that there are so many different things that you have to keep in mind: eg, with ram i believe that both cards have to be the same type (eg both SDRAM), both have to be the same speed (eg PC133) otherwize the faster one will slow down to the speed of the slower, the MOBO has to have the right slot for the type of ram, both the MOBO and BIOS both have limits the max speed and size of RAM they can use etc...

 

With all those little things that have to be bore in mind for each component...

 

hmm... I suppose it would be best to chose the components first, and then the MOBO after?

[Callipygous]

the rule i generally go by is get GOOD stuff, then just make sure you make use of it for a few years so its worth the cost. if you get a modern motherboard, modern memory will be compatable. all you have to do is make sure if you get more than one stick, make them both the same.

 

it does actually get more complicated though... if you use two hardrives there are some issues, but they can be easily avoided by just setting them to cable select, instructions on how to do so can be found on the harddrive usually.

 

pretty much every card you use is going to be PCI, with the exception of graphics cards. most graphics cards are AGP (which isnt on your mobo) some of the newest ones are PCI express. to avoid problems with all that, you can usually just check with someone in the store to make sure they will work. or if your not a gamer, you can just use the onboard graphics which is probably what your mobo has.

[5614]

Wow that's an old mobo!

 

As for building a new one I agree you need to keep a lot in mind, the hardest part is by far chosing 100% compatable components.

 

It's probably best to know roughly what you want and get a mobo first, well, chose one, don't actually buy it! And then find other components which fit into the mobo.

 

The reason I say that is because otherwise you get all your components and come to the mobo. You have a totaly precise specification which you must have. Sure there are tons of different mobos around but what if you don't find the exact mobo you require? It becomes problematic.

 

Knowing there's a mobo which supports PC4200 RAM, a PCI-E gfx car, a processor with a specific socket and a certain bios makes it easier than having all of your spec and finding there's no perfect mobo to bring it all together.

[Dak]

PC4200 ram?

 

I didnt know my computer was that old... iv only got pc133.

 

cheers for all the groovy tips

[Callipygous]

PC4200 ram?

 

I didnt know my computer was that old... iv only got pc133.

 

cheers for all the groovy tips

 

 

its a different number.

 

the two are related pretty simply, but this is yet another thing i have forgotten the specifics of. something about clockspeed i think?

 

anyway, the equivalent big number of your pc 133 is something like 2100 or 2700. not as old as it seemed, but yes, still behind.

[5614]

The old came from the ISA slot and the other brown one... don't know the name, but those 2 slots are quite old.

 

PC4200... like here: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=121514

 

It's PC4200 but its clock speed is 533MHz, so you might call it DDR533.

 

This site show you all the different DDRs and PC values: http://www.directron.com/ddr533.html

It's minimum is DDR200.... it don't even go down to 133!

 

[edit] Callipygous's post wasn't there when I started typing... yeah the numbers are related, one is the PR rating whilst the other is the clockspeed. As increases so does the other (ie. big PR rating like PC4200 is a big clockspeed 533Mhz, relative to say PC2700 which is 333MHz)

 

Callipygous it's 333MHz which is PC2700, not 133.

 

Dak's 133 will be less than PC1600.

[Callipygous]

he doesnt have DDR : P

 

or is that an accronym that gets reused for different things?

[5614]

err, good point and I don't know... I'm just used to going from the 333MHz clock speed to automatically assuming DDR333.

 

Maybe this is why they use the PR rating system (ie. PC2700) because, well, firstly there never used to be DDR and now there's DDR-2 etc. you can't really use it as a comparison system.

 

Not sure tbh.