Inside Your Computer: The 10 Parts to Every Computer

• Motherboard
• Processor
• Heat sink
• Fan
• Memory
• Power Supply
• Cables
• Hard Drive
• CD/DVD Drive
• Cards (Video, Sound, Network)

The Motherboard: The Computer's Highway System

A motherboard is like a mini city with connected paths like highways for our bits (0's and 1's) to travel on.  It is the central circuit board of your computer with all other components and peripherals connecting into it in one way or another (either directly or through cables).

The motherboard houses the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), which is the simple software that is run by the motherboard when the computer is first turned on.

The Processor: The Computer's Brain

The Processor (also known as the Central Processing Unit or CPU) is like the brain of the computer and it connects into the motherboard.  There are different brands and types, however processors are chosen based upon the following factors:

• Speed
• Interface Type
• Bus Speed
• 32-bit or 64-bit
• Multicore Processors

The Heat Sink: Helps Dissipate Heat

A heat sink helps absorb or dissipate heat from your CPU by allowing the heat to be channeled into the heat sink (which is usually made of copper or aluminum alloy).  It rests between the processor and the fan.

If you just put a heat sink on top of a CPU there will be a small, almost invisible gap between the two. This can affect the heat absorption. To fix this you can apply a material that can improve thermal conductivity. Sometimes a thermal pad is provided… other times you apply a thermal compound (also called heat sink jelly or thermal conductive grease).

The Fan

There are different fan types within your computer.  There is one within your power supply, one atop of your processor (most likely) and possibly others to assist in moving air around in your case or to expel warm air to help keep your system cooler.

In order to keep noise down you may consider alternatives to fans like watercooling.

Memory

Memory (a.k.a Random Access Memory or RAM) fastens into the motherboard and comes in different shapes and sizes.  Memory provides temporary storage for your data as a go-between from your CPU to your hard drive.

With memory, often times, the more you have... the better your system performs. 

A Power Supply

The computer's power supply is designed to convert power from higher AC power voltages (110 or 220 depending on your location) down to lower DC outputs. Inside the power supply you have all sorts of complex electrical components like diodes, capacitors, transistors, and transformers.

Cables

The Hard Drive

The hard drive stores your many Gigabytes of data.  All your programs and files (songs, pictures and so forth) require space on your hard drive.  While newer drives are beginning to work without spinning platters, the current drives use flat circular spinning platters with read/write heads that look like needles above and below them so that they can be written to and read from.

Working Together: The Processor, Cache, Memory and Hard Drive

The way all of your computer parts work together is similar to the way you have things working in your real office.  You might have your desktop (where you have your immediate work) some folders to the side (where you have the most pressing information you need to process) an organizer for folders within reach that you use to move folders back and forth from your nearby pile of folders over to your organizer. And then, a file cabinet . In fact, you may have an advanced series of file cabinets that you can retrieve information from.

This is similar to the way your computer works. You have the file cabinet (which is your hard drive) and it passes files back and forth through your memory (your organizer). You need those closer for processing so they go through your cache (which is just a go between from the processor to the memory) and finally you have your processor (which acts as the final step and you see it all on your computer desktop). The large file cabinet room… well… that is similar to your network servers.. more specifically, your file servers (if you are using your computers in a large environment with servers).

So… just imagine the files in your real world moving back and forth between your cabinet, organizer, folders and desktop. Then, at much higher speeds of course, imagine your computer doing the same things but with the hard drive, memory, cache, and processor…. Showing it all on your system’s desktop.

CD/DVD Drives

CDs and DVDs may look the same... but they hold very different amounts of data.  A CD can handle about 700 MB of data while a standard DVD can hold over 4 GB (with some DVDs holding much more).  There are different types of CD/DVD players.  Some can record, some can even re-record... so pay close attention to the type you purchase for you computer.

Internal Cards: Video, Sound and/or Network Cards

Inside your computer there are cards that you can snap in and out.... like a video card, a sound card and/or a network card (perhaps even a wireless network card).

What is a Network?

A network is two or more computers that are connected together to share information. 

Networks require that your computer be able to connect to others… so that obviously requires either a cable that plugs into a network card located within your system.  Or it requires a wireless access point that can be connected to by your computer that has a card for wireless connectivity or it has the features built in, like with your laptop.

What is TCP/IP?

TCP/IP is a set of communications protocols that are used for the Internet and other networks, like the network in your office or even your home if you have one.  A protocol is a set of standards for communicating

TCP/IP helps to encapsulate your data and prepare it for transmission on the network or Internet.  TCP/IP helps to structure addresses for computers and other devices on the Internet so that the packets know where to go.

What is an IP Address?

IP addresses are 32-bit binary numbers expressed in dotted decimal format.  There are two parts to an IP address.  The first part is the network the device is on.  The second part is the node.

What is a Subnet Mask?

A subnet mask is a number that helps networks distinguish between a network and node.  A simple way of expressing it is using either the number 255 or 0, although it can become more complicated in advanced networking.

What is a Router?

A router is just like your local post office.  You drop off your mail.  If it is local you put it in one box… but all remote mail goes in the Out of Town box.  In computers we call this the default gateway.  Any time you try to send a transmission to another network… the router looks at it and realizes that it has to move the message from one network to another.

Sometimes it may not know the network you are sending it to… in which case it has to send the message to another network… and so on until it eventually reaches its destination.

Locating Your IP Address

There is more than one way to discover the IP address of your system.  You can do the following:

• In Vista, use the Network and Sharing Center and look to the connection Details.
• You can also look at the properties of your network connection and consider the IPv4 protocols properties.
• Finally, you can use IPCONFIG from a command prompt to get your systems IP address(es).

Using PING to Troubleshoot Your Connection

PING is like a tennis ball that you throw at a specific target.  If it bounces back, the target is up and running.  If not… you have a problem along the line.

You can start by pinging your own system.  This is the local host or loopback and the address is 127.0.0.1.  From there you might try pinging a system on your same network, or your default gateway, or possibly a system on the Internet.

Understanding DNS

DNS stands for the Domain Name System.  It is a hierarchical naming system for a variety of different uses but most importantly it is used to keep track of names to IP addresses on the Internet and within companies.

So, when you type into your browser the address of a web site, like www.microsoft.com, your computer checks an internal address book to see if it knows that sites IP address.  If not, it checks the com DNS to look for Microsoft, and then the IP address of the servers that have the www service running on it is given to your system so you can locate the website on the Internet.