Chp.2 Motherboards

Chp.2 Motherboards

1. Technical Specification

   • info includes diagrams, descriptions, installation procedures
   • Read the manual, which in turn aids the installing, configuring, and troubleshooting process

2. Chipsets and Buses

   • Incorporates all the controllers on the motherboard
   • PCH
     • stands for Platform Controller Hub, a name Intel uses
       • Chipset is composed of a single chip
   • Central meeting point for many devices
     • It also has a high-speed point-to-point interconnection to the processor called the Direct Media Interface (DMI) link
       • Also known as DMI bus
       • The DMI carries all traffic from controllers to the processor
       • Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) is a more powerful version of Intel's DMI
   • Bus
     • Can be one wire (serial) or a group of wires working in unison (parallel) that carry data from one place to another
     • Parallel buses are normally designed in multiples of 8 wires that can send 1 byte of data (8-bits) at a time in one direction
   • Lane
     • is two series of wires that enable sending and receiving of data simultaneously
     • DMI makes use of lanes
   • historically the motherboard chipset consisted of two chips
     • Northbridge
       • in charge of the connection to high data transfer devices such as PCI express video cards and the RAM
     • Southbridge
       • in charge of the connection to all the secondary controllers : USB, SATA, Firewire, etc...
   • Hyper-Transport
     • AMD's connection to northbridge and processor
   • Older Intel designs used the NB/SN concept, which Intel gave names to
     • Northbridge was known as the Memory Controller Hub (MCH)
       • Three major buses that lead to and from MCH
         • Front-side-bus (FSB)
           • this connects the MCH to the processor (CPU) socket
           • when selecting a processor, make sure that it can run at one of the FSB speeds prescribed by the motherboard
           • the speed of the FSB is rated in Hertz (Hz)
             • A unit of frequency defined as a number of cycles per second
           • Parallel bus
         • Memory bus
           • set of wires connect the MCH to the RAM slots, it has also be referred as the address bus
           • Parallel bus
         • PCI Express x16 interface
           • connects the MCH to the x16 PCIe slots used for video
             • usually only one on motherboard
           • works in groups of serial buses called lanes, similar to DMI
     • Southbridge was known as the I/O Controller Hub (ICH)
       • provides connectivity to all secondary buses
         • Parallel bus
           • IDE and Audio
         • Serial buses
           • USB, SATA, IEEE 1394, and lesser PCIe slots

3. Drive Technologies

   • SATA and IDE
     • Always connect to the SB, or chipset if there is only one
   • Serial ATA
     • Sends data in serial fashion (1-bit at a time)
     • SATA speeds and transfers
       • SATA 1
         • 1.5 Gb/s equals roughly to 150 MB/s
       • SATA 2
         • offers 3.0 Gb/s
       • SATA 3
         • runs at 6 Gb/s
   • Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE)
     • interfaces have 40 pins
     • utilize Parallel ATA (PATA) standard
       • maximum data transfer rate of 133 MB/s
         • these bytes of info are transferred in parallel
     • IDE connector is 40 pins, but depending on version, cables can have 40 or 80 conductors

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