The Motherboard is the backbone of every Desktop PC. It is a printed circuit board that has many different connectors located over the surface. These connectors allow support for a large range of modular hardware, giving your PC the flexibility and versatility to be upgraded or expanded.
There are many different shapes and sizes of Motherboard available today, these are grouped together in form factors for compatibility. The most common form factors are ATX and microATX.
The labeled photo below is of a microATX Motherboard. The key areas have been highlighted and labeled.
A)Hard Drive connector (blue), Floppy connector (black) |
H)PCI-Express x16 slot (Graphics card slot) |
B)Serial ATA connectors (SATA) |
I)PCI Expansion slots |
C)USB Headers |
J)Battery (Retains BIOS settings when power is switched off) |
D)Power,Reset button / Power LED / Hard drive LED pins |
K)4-Pin power supply |
E)Memory Sockets |
L)20-Pin power supply |
F)CPU Fan power header |
M)PCI-Express x1 slot |
G)CPU Socket |
N)External Motherboard connectors (Parallel,USB,PS/2,RJ45) |