Ms Technology Vocabulary System Board
Matthew Kreutter January 2009 Computer 7-2
System Board:
Also known as a motherboard, a mobo, mainboard, or for Macs, a logic board. It basically holds the main processing/circuitry of a computer. It has RAM slots, slots for expansion cards (video, sound, and graphic), a chipset (group of Integrated Circuits/IC's) that forms an interface front-side buses, peripheral buses, and main memory. It slots for microprocessors (integrates functions that CPU's perform into a single microchip/microcircuit/IC), Non-Volatile Memory (stores information even while not powered) chips, usually for Flash ROM drives, (NVM, able to be erased and reprogrammed, easy for transferring and storing information), for containing the systems firmware (term for fixed and usually small programs inside electronic devices that helps to control them) and Bios (Basic Input/Output System; Identifies, tests, and initializes system component hardware like the video card, hard disk, floppy disk, and some other hardware devices like mice and keyboards. The motherboard contains a Clock Generator (sends out a timed signal to sync various parts of the computer).
