Computer Hardware – Overview Of Internal Components
Even though most people use a computer every day, some for a large part of the day, most people don’t know how their computer works on the inside. This article attempts to give a high level overview of how a computer works by describing the major components of the computer. With this information you should have enough understanding to do basic upgrades and repairs on the computer.
Case: The computer is enclosed inside of a case. The case is like the metallic body of a car. It protects the internal components and holds everything in place.
Power Supply: The power supply converts electricity from the wall outlet into electricity that the different internal components can use. Each internal component has its own power requirements – different voltages, different currents, etc. The power supply provides the correct electricity for each component.
Motherboard: The motherboard is like the nervous system of a human being, it connects all the internal components together. All communication is done over the motherboard.
The motherboard also has what’s known as integrated devices, devices that add functionality that are part of the motherboard. Back in the day there was a separate audio card, network card, modem card, etc., basically a card for every device. But since these cards are so common, and are standard to every computer, for convenience they now come as part of the motherboard.
CPU: The Core Processing Unit, also known as the processor, is the logic part of the computer. All decisions and calculations are done by the processor. It’s the central part of the computer; all the other parts are there to support and extend it.
Main Memory: The main memory, RAM, or just memory, is the short-term memory of the computer. It’s very fast, but much smaller than the hard drive, long-term memory.
The processor only communicates with short-term memory, because long-term memory is too slow. Whenever the processor needs some information from the hard drive, it first loads it into main memory and works with it there. Then once it’s done and wants to save the changes, it writes the data back to the hard drive for storage.
Hard Drive: The hard drive is the long-term, or storage, memory of the computer. It’s much larger and much slower than main memory. The hard drive stores information by using magnetic fields to align magnetic materials on the hard drive.
Video Card: The video card is responsible for handling the display and for 2D/3D calculations. Basic video cards often come integrated into the motherboard. But more powerful video cards, for intensive 3D applications, come as large standalone devices. They are big circuit boards with their own processors (GPUs) and memory.
CD/DVD Drive: A very common component in the computer, the CD/DVD drive is there to read and write CDs and DVDs.
This very high level description of the components should give you a basic understanding of how the computer works; at least enough to know that if you need more storage space, you should add or replace the hard drive.