Memory Processor Motherboards and buses Articles
Address Lines and Buses - ...r of physical (i.e., DRAM) bytes that a processor is capable of addressing is known as the processor's physical address space.
T...
What is a Computer Bus - ...d register within the
peripheral that is being accessed.
Data: The information being transferred to or from the
peripheral....
PCI Signal Groups - ... consistent state. Whenever RST# is asserted, all PCI output signals
must be driven to their benign state. In general, this means they mu...
Port forwarding is not just for router - ...ss and our computer just have a private ip address. So router is located between our computer and internet. This will cause user or service from in...
Standards and Types of Motherboards - ...boards interchangeable.
For you as the purchaser of a new computer, motherboard standardization has its downside. You face the problem of th...
RISC - ...
By eliminating microcode, this design camp believed, simpler instructions could be executed at speeds so much higher that no degree of instructi...
Memory Types and Technologies - .../p>
The analog of electricity, magnetism, can also be readily manipulated by electrical circuits and computers. In fact, a form of magnetic memory...
Shadow Memory - ...through 8-bit data buses. As a result, these memory areas cannot be accessed nearly as fast as the host system's 32-bit or 64-bit RAM. This problem ...
Unified Memory Architecture - ...for storing video images.
The chief attraction of this design is that it cuts the cost of a PC. Manufacturers no longer need pay for video b...
Memory Speed - ...eed of such a fast (by the standards of 1984, remember) microprocessor. The 80286 could request bytes in such short order that memory was unable to ...
Bus Interface - ...ssor's data bus. Many motherboards lack sufficient space for memory expansion and consequently relegate expansion memory to daughterboards. These d...
BIOS Functions - ...r determining which expansion boards and peripherals you have installed and ensuring that they do not conflict in their requests for input/output po...
Flash BIOS - ...quickly into Flash ROM than EPROM. To make the BIOS flash-upgradable, however, your PC's motherboard requires special circuitry to apply the program...
PCMCIA - ...top standards likely stretches out longer than the largest dimension of most notebook machines. And a single board might draw more power than an ent...
Plug and Play ISA - ...heck jumpers or DIP switch settings to ensure that they do not conflict with those of anything else in your system. Or should you be blessed with a ...
Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture - ...icro Channel as possible without infringing on IBM's intellectual property rights in Micro Channel's technologies (so no licensing fees would be due...
Industry Standard Architecture - ...add more data signals (as well as address and control signals) to the PC bus to match the capabilities of the new and more powerful chip. The bus sp...
Enhanced ISA - ...ut passed control and management of the standard to an independent organization, BCPR Services, which now officiates the standard.
The basic...
VGA Modes - ...00(Hex), the very bottom of High DOS memory. Normally, the full expanse of the system's display memory is split four ways into 64K banks, although a...
About Clocking - ...r significance from their physical position in the lines of the data bus, the get their meaning from their position in time. Instead of traveling th...
IrDA overview - ...shing into a catch basin for a fallen quarter-and, more likely than not, unplugging something else that you'll inevitably need later only to discove...
USB: Universal Serial Bus Overview - ...along with high speed devices. The low speed signaling rate is 1.5 Mbits/sec.
First introduced in 1996, the USB is more than a successor to ...
IEEE 1394 Port Overview - ...r engine on an Autobahn that's unfettered by speed limits. The chances your data will get where its going unscathed are slim and, even if successful...
Bringing binary to the CPU - ...hick as a slice of pepperoni. There. You have a sense of the dimensions of the microprocessor, the brute force miracle that makes computers possible. ...
Updating your laptops BIOS - ...nd getting the computer otherwise able to handle the operating system, the microprocessor, and you.
Your laptop manufacturer advise you if it ...
Extreme processors for laptops - ...ng versions of their CPUs specifically aimed at laptop designers' needs, including low power draw and reduced heat production. Among the tricks they e...
How much memory does a laptop needs - ... four, etc up to jack, queen, and king in each of four suits. In this new, unshuffled deck, if you wanted to get at the three of hearts, you might hav...
Using Your Brain When Buying Memory - ...ed in the machine and what configuration is used.
Is all the memory on one module? Are two modules of equal size already installed? Are two un...
Checking up on your memory - ...at treat memory as a commodity: online stores, catalog marketers, and computer superstores. Not too long ago of computerdom, it generally made sense t...
Cramming Some RAM in a Laptop - ...table. Take these preliminary steps:
1. Turn off the computer using the Windows shut- down process.
You lose stored data if you use Sl...
How Transistors Manipulate Information - ...ind of as the original IBM PC and AT systems depending on the Intel 8088 and 80286 microprocessors, are 16-bit PCs. That indicates they can work direc...
How Multi core Processors Function - ...ce more processors within the computer.
Multi-core processors are like bolting a few computers together and having them share the same memory,...
Latest "Memory Processor Motherboards and buses" Articles
Page# 1 (last added articles shown first)
How Transistors Manipulate Information (08/31/2010)
(...)
Transistors are not used merely to record and manipulate amounts. The bits can just as easily stand for true (1) or not true (0), which allows computers to deal with Boolean logic. ("Select this AND this but NOT this. (...)
How Multi core Processors Function (08/31/2010)
(...) The wildly colored places above the cores within the photo here are supporting the circuitry.
When the subtasks exit the cores, the operation system combines the threads into an procedure to combine them into a single quantity, and sends that operation to one from the cores for execution.
If the application software isn't equipped to function in multiple cores, the operating system can still carry advantage of them. (...)
Why Overclocked PCs works (08/31/2010)
(...) Eventually the heat reaches the chip's surface, where conduction transfers the high temperature towards the air, allowing the high temperature to slowly dissipate.
The more surface region a chip has, the much more heat can be passed on to the air. The added surface is provided by heat sinks. (...)
How a compulers Long Term Memory Functions (08/31/2010)
(...) Prior to any information could be stored on a magnetic dvd, the dvd should first be formatted.
Formatting creates a road map that enables the drive to shop and discover data in an orderly manner. The road map consists of magnetic markers embedded in the magnetic film about the surface of the disk. (...)
Checking up on your memory (08/20/2010)
(...) If a stick will fail, most likely it's either dead on arrival very rare since factories test them or will fail within a few hours or days of installation (after going through a few cold- to- hot- to- cold cycles). Pay attention to the price variations caused by supply and demand. A 2GB module should, in theory, cost a bit less than two 1GB modules because it requires only one circuit board, connector, and packaging. (...)
Cramming Some RAM in a Laptop (08/20/2010)
(...) Secondly, doing any work on a laptop while power is applied could result in a damaging spark.
3. Remove the battery. (...)
Bringing binary to the CPU (08/19/2010)
(...)
In the meantime, for your purposes here, you need to know that a computer knows only two numbers: and 1. And it only learns how to add. How does a computer subtract 12 from 15? It converts the numbers to something called a two's complement and then adds them together. (...)
Laptops tent to have weaker microprocessors (08/19/2010)
(...) The executive team actually has a fourth member, and it's one that most laptop owners never see: the motherboard, which holds everything together and paves the pathways between them with streets of gold. Or copper. Or tin and other conductive metals. (...)
AMD CPU and the requirement of speed at laptops (08/19/2010)
(...) Otherwise you'll be doing roughly the same as continuously trying to load and unload ten pounds of data with a five- pound bucket; it won't all fit at once and you will quickly develop a huge backlog at each end of the process.
Laptops use the same sort of processors that desktop machines use. Because laptops run on batteries and because heat buildup within a closed little box can lead to problems, designers generally use modified CPU designs that draw less power, can switch features on/off, or can adjust their speed (and thus power draw and heat generation) as needed. (...)
Extreme processors for laptops (08/19/2010)
(...) 2 GHz, about double the speed of a standard CPU. It also includes 12 MB of L2 cache and a 1600 MHz front side bus. What does all that mean? It means it is fast and capable of taking on multiple tasks at the same time. (...)
How much memory does a laptop needs (08/19/2010)
(...) You could see instantly where the three of hearts was sitting and you could reach right in and grab it without having to move past the rest of the cards. This is a form of random access memory.
Storage
On your laptop, storage includes your hdd; you should store files on an external hard drive drive, on a recordable CD or DVD, or even on a flash memory key. (...)
Using Your Brain When Buying Memory (08/19/2010)
(...) That means small pieces of memory on a stick with a tiny set of 200 connectors at the bottom that plug into a matching socket.
You must match the exact type of memory and module to your machine's needs. You'll find the necessary details by consulting the instruction manual for your machine or by visiting several online web sites for memory vendors; the very best of them allow you to enter the model number or part number of your laptop (you find both on a label on the underside of your machine) and receive a report about compatible devices. (...)
About Clocking (06/19/2010)
(...)
Engineers split the universe of serial communications into two distinct forms, synchronous and asynchronous. The difference between them relates to how they deal with time.
Synchronous communications require the sending and receiving system-for our purposes, the PC and printer-to synchronize their actions. (...)
Hardware Flow Control in the Serial Interface (06/19/2010)
(...) It indicates its readiness by sending the data terminal ready signal to the data set.
Simultaneously, it activates its request to send line.
When the data set knows the data terminal is ready, it answers the phone and listens for the carrier of the other modem. (...)
Software Flow Control in the Serial Interface (06/19/2010)
(...) It is sometimes called Control-Q. When you hold down Control and type Q into your communications program, it cancels the effect of a Control-S.
ETX/ACK works similarly. (...)
IrDA overview (06/19/2010)
(...) Creating what has come to be known as the Infrared Developers Association or IrDA, they aimed at more than making your PC more convenient to carry. They also saw a new versatility and, hardly incidentally, a way to trim their own costs.
The idea behind the get together was to create a standard for using infrared light to link your PC to peripherals and other systems. (...)
USB: Universal Serial Bus Overview (06/19/2010)
(...) USB handles all the issues involved in linking multiple devices with different capabilities and data rates with a layer cake of software. Along the way, it introduces its own new technology and terminology.
USB divides serial hardware into two classes, hubs and functions. (...)
IEEE 1394 Port Overview (06/19/2010)
(...) P1394 has the potential for replacing not only your serial port but the parallel port, SCSI port, even the video connector.
Cross the slowest port in your PC with the most cantankerous one, and what do you get? Not an engineer's nightmare but a vision of the future called P1394. Although this up and coming standard combines the serial technology of today's laggardly RS-232C port with the intelligence of SCSI protocol, it takes the best instead of worst of each and makes an interconnection system with the speed of local bus, the wiring ease of MIDI, and economy in keeping with today's plunging PC prices. (...)
VGA Modes (06/14/2010)
(...) The VGA Sequencer Register at port address 03C4(Hex) controls the function of the port used by the Map Mask Register. When the Sequencer Register is set to the value 02(Hex), port 03C5(Hex) gives access to the Map Mask Register.
The Map Mask Register has four control bits. (...)
Plug and Play ISA (06/01/2010)
(...)
Plug-and-Play works without modification to the ISA bus, although it allows for advanced systems to streamline their configuration process by adding a single slot-specific signal to each bus connector. The main modification required by Plug-and-Play ISA is the addition of special registers to each expansion board and the capability for each card to deselect itself, essentially disconnecting itself from the bus so that it does not respond to commands and signals meant for other boards.
Isolation Sequence. (...)
Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture (06/01/2010)
(...) It works effectively. Although it, like Micro Channel, has failed to be a major force in the PC mainstream, the reasons relate to applications and cost rather than technical capability (again, like Micro Channel). Although EISA shows some promise for the next generation of PCs, it will likely be eclipsed by newer designs like PCI. (...)
Industry Standard Architecture (06/01/2010)
(...) It retained compatibility with most earlier PC expansion products, while adding the functionality needed to push forward into full 16-bit technology. In addition, The AT bus contained a few new ideas (at least for PC-compatible computers) that hinted at-and perhaps even foretold-the Micro Channel. Inherent in the AT bus but almost entirely unused are provisions for cohabiting microprocessors inside the system, able to take control and share resources. (...)
Enhanced ISA (06/01/2010)
(...)
Of course, one contrary viewpoint is to label EISA the computer equivalent of a camel-rather than a horse-drawn by committee, a standard so executed by the Gang of Nine. The goal, announced September 13, 1988, was to design a 32-bit successor to Industry Standard Architecture-one that remained compatible to it instead of replacing it.
To improve performance, EISA relied on four advanced transfer modes that trim the number of clock cycles needed to move each byte. (...)
Standards and Types of Motherboards (05/31/2010)
(...)
The earliest motherboard standards followed the leads set by IBM. They duplicated the physical dimensions of the motherboards used by the most popular IBM machines. Even when they lopped off vast areas of board to trim costs, most manufacturers retained compatibility with IBM's designs, keeping mounting holes in the same locations so that one board could be substituted for another. (...)
RISC (05/31/2010)
(...) He is credited with inventing the Reduced Instruction Set Computer or RISC in 1974. In 1987 Cocke's work on RISC won him the Turing Award (named for computer pioneer Alan M. Turing, known best for the Turing Test definition of artificial intelligence), given by the Association for Computing Machinery as its highest honor for technical contributions to computing. (...)
Memory Types and Technologies (05/31/2010)
(...)
Using electrical circuits endows primary storage with the one thing it needs most-speed. Only part of its swiftness is attributable to electricity, however. More important is the way in which the bits of storage are arranged. (...)
Shadow Memory (05/31/2010)
(...)
Shadowing has some detrimental effects on its host PC. Any ROM memory that is shadowed must be duplicated in RAM, and the bytes used for the duplication will be stolen away from the total RAM in your system. This memory is reallocated for its purpose by your PC's BIOS and is invisible to the rest of your system-including your applications. (...)
Unified Memory Architecture (05/31/2010)
(...)
To the digital logic of your PC's microprocessor, the UMA design appears no different than a conventional video system. The frame buffer appears in the same logical location as always. If it did not, your applications would not be able to access it. (...)
Memory Speed (05/31/2010)
(...) The two measurements are reciprocal. At a speed of one megahertz, one clock cycle is 1000 nanoseconds long; eight megahertz equals 125 nanoseconds; sixteen megahertz, 62.5 nanoseconds; twenty megahertz, 50 nanoseconds; twenty-five megahertz, 40 nanoseconds; thirty-three megahertz, 33 nanoseconds; and so on. (...)
Bus Interface (05/31/2010)
(...) Accessing this add-in memory thus requires the system to slow down to the 8 MHz rate. A 66 MHz machine would be effectively slowed to one-eighth speed when accessing expansion board memory.
The memory in classic AT bus slots imposes an additional slowdown on 386DX, 486, and Pentium microprocessors because of the maximum 16-bit width of the bus. (...)
BIOS Functions (05/31/2010)
(...) The PC BIOS was, in some eyes, rudimentary. The functions it supplied appeared basic compared to the elaborate and exotic firmware of the Macintosh, which include high order functions such as how the machine paints graphics. Rather than personality, the difference is philosophy. (...)
Flash BIOS (05/31/2010)
(...) It might not be able to boot up and re-run the loader. Consequently, for your security, some system makers require that you take elaborate precautions before you try making a BIOS upgrade. For example, the manufacturer may require you to use both the battery and AC power supplies of a notebook PC to make a BIOS update. (...)
PCMCIA (05/31/2010)
(...)
John Reimer, upon being appointed marketing manager for microcomputer products at Fujitsu in 1987, quickly determined that he had inherited what amounted to a product looking for a purpose. It seemed to Reimer that card memory had the potential to serve as a data exchange medium that lacked the environmental vulnerability of floppy disks (such as LBLdust, temperature, shock, and impact).
While exploring marketing opportunities for his memory cards, Reimer discovered that the Poqet Computer Company was itself investigating the use of memory cards as an alternative to disk drives for a new product that was ultimately to become the first true sub-notebook PC. (...)
What is a Computer Bus (05/18/2008)
(...)
But there are also many
bus implementations based on cables interconnecting stand-alone
boxes. The GPIB (general purpose interface bus) is a classic example.
Contemporary examples of cable busses include USB (universal
serial bus) and IEEE-1394 (trademarked by Apple Computer under
the name Firewire™). (...)
PCI Signal Groups (05/18/2008)
(...) During the address phase of a transaction, C/BE[3::0]
define a bus command. During each data phase, C/BE[3::0] are used as
byte enables to determine which byte lanes carry valid data. C/BE[0]
applies to byte 0 (lsb) and C/BE[3] applies to byte 3 (msb). (...)
Memory Hierarchy (02/17/2008)
(...) Finally, there's Video RAM (VRAM), which is a region of memory used by video hardware.
Recent advances in technology and special optimizations implemented by certain manufacturers have led to a number of additional acronyms. Here are a couple of them:
DDR SDRAM
RDRAM
ESDRAM
DDR SDRAM stands for Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. (...)
Address Lines and Buses (02/17/2008)
(...) People normally don't want to spend the money necessary to populate the entire physical address space with DRAM chips. Buying 4GB of DRAM is still usually reserved for high-end enterprise servers.
The physical address space of a processor is determined by the number of address lines that it has. (...)
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