Computer Architecture & Maintenance

Second Year Diploma

 CHAPTER - 01

 Definition of Motherboard.

 Chipset Basic.

 Motherboard Architecture

 North Bridge/South Bridge Architecture

 Hub Architecture

 Architecture of Intel chipset 915 g & 945 g

 Buses

- Internal Buses

- External Buses

 Logical Memory Organization

 Concept of Cache Memory

 Features of SDRAM,DDR,DDR2,DDR3

 Features of Intel Processor

 Processor Modes

 BIOS Function

 Motherboard Selection criteria

 Definition of Motherboard:-

 The motherboard is the main circuit board of microcomputer. It contains the connectors for
attaching additional cards.

 Typically the motherboard contains the CPU,BIOS mass storage interfaces, serial and parallel
port, expansion slots and all the controller required to control all peripheral device such as
screen, keyboard and disk drive.

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  Collectively all these chips are resides on the motherboard hence known as chipset.

 Form Factors:-

 The shape and layout of a motherboard is called as form factor.

 The form factor refers to the physical dimension as well as certain connector screw hole and
other position of that board will fit.

 The form factor determines the general layout, size and feature placement on a motherboard.
Different form usually require different style cases/cabinets.

Types of Form Factor.:- PC/AT,PC/XT,MINI/AT,MICRO/AT ,AT/ATX

 Chipset Basic

Block Diagram of Chipset Basic

 Overview:-

 Modern motherboard chipset nearly always consists of two separates chips

North Bridge/South Bridge.

 These two chips handle the communication between the processor ,RAM, video option PCI slots,
BIOS, ATA controller, USB ports, integrated modem, integrated LAN port and integrated sound

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  Motherboard chipset controls the features and abilities of the motherboard

 Intel and AMD provide the specification to the chipset manufacturers who in turn develop and
sell chipset with various features and abilities to motherboard manufacturer.

 Chipset Architecture

 North Bridge/South Bridge Architecture:-

 Description

 North Bridge:-

 The North Bridge also know as the Memory Controller Hub.

 The North Bridge is a controller which controls the flow of data between the CPU and RAM, and
to the AGP port which is a I/O port.

 The AGP port which is a I/O port. This is used for Video card. In contrast to the other I/O device
the AGP port is connected directly to the North bridge because it is as closer to the RAM as
possible .

 The North Bridge has a large heat sink attached to it. It gets hot because of the very large
amount of data traffic which pass it.

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  South Bridge:-

 The South Bridge is a chip on the motherboard is generally designed for the P-IV processor.

 It is generally used to transfer the data to and from the hard disk and all other I/O devices ,and
passes this data into the link channel which connect to the North Bridge.

 Hub Architecture:-

 Description

 Hub Architecture:-

 Intel hub architecture is also called as Accelerated hub architecture (AHA). It uses a Memory
Controller Hub (MCH) that is directly connected to an I/O Controller Hub (ICH) via a 266 MB/s
internal bus. This connection sometimes is also called as Direct Media Interface (DMI) .The MCH
chip Support memory and AGP.

 The ICH chip provide the connectivity for PCI,USB sound ,IDE hard disk and LAN

 Architecture of Intel 915G Chipset:-

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 Description

 The most Intel 915G Chipset Support Hyper Threading Technology deliver innovative features
and new benefits for both business and home users.

 The Intel 915G Express Chipset was designed to support Hyper –Threading Technology adding
intelligence to help manage and prioritize multiple threads received from the processor

 An HT technology enabled performance and responsiveness .

 The Intel 915G Express Chipset is based on a new architecture ,innovative technology and high
bandwidth interface and include option for integrated and discrete graphics.

 The Intel 915G Express Chipset incorporates a new Graphics Memory Controller Hub (GMCH)
backbone architecture to support the faster memory increased graphics requirement and I/O
bandwidth.

 This new design includes wider internal data bus that support dual channel DDR2 memory
technology at 533 MHz or up to 8.5 GB/s of peak memory bandwidth for improved
performance.

 The new architecture also support both synchronous and asynchronous data traffic with
dedicated internal pipelines and specialized arbitration.

 An integrated Serial ATA (SATA) controller supports 4 SATA ports ,each providing up to 1.5 GB/s
transfer rates for SATA optical devices or hard drives.

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  INTEL 915G EXPRESS CHIPSET FEATURES:-

 800-MHz FSB Support for today’s high-performance Intel Pentium 4 Processor.

 It support the HT technology to enable improved system performance and responsiveness.

 It also support multitasking.

 Intel Stable image technology simplifies software image management.

 Buses on Motherboard of Pentium IV

 Definition of Bus:-

 Bus is shared linear pathway that connects multiple device to provide a communication
channel among them.

 Any device connected to the bus can communicate bi directionally with other devices
connected to the bus.

 Computer components such as processor ,cache RAM, expansion cards and other
communicate using one of the more the multiple buses that exist in the computer

 The external bus is also referred to as the expansion bus .

 There are six major types of buses found on the common motherboard .Only few of
them are actually found on the home PC.

 Types of Buses:

Internal Bus:-

There are three types of Internal Buses.

1.Address Bus 2.Data Bus3.Control Bus.

External Bus:-

There are six types of external Buses.

1.ISA, 2,PCI, 3.AGP, 4.UBS, 5.IDE

 Structure of the Buses:-

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 ISA( Industry Standard Architecture) :-

 This type of bus is an 8 bit bus mainly designed for original IBM PC . It was later expanded to 16
bits with the IBM PC/AT.

 Features of ISA:-

 Eight Data Lines.

 Four DMA channels.

 Eight Address Lines

 Enable to handle 1MB of Memory.

 Advantages of ISA:-

 It Support older Types Of Cards.

 Disadvantages of ISA:-

 It is slower.

 Support only 8 bit device only.

 Not used in modern PC

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  PCI( Peripheral Component Interconnect):-

 It is one type of bus attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard.

 This is a high speed bus that connect high performance peripherals like video adapters ,disk
adaptors and network adaptors to the chipset ,processor, memory.

 PCI bus width and the speed:-

 PCI buses differs in two respects that determines their performance: PCI bus width and
bus speed

 PCI with 32 bit width at 33.33MHz.

 PCI with 64 bit width at 66.66MHz.

 Specification of PCI:-

 PCI with 64 bit width at 66.66MHz.

 33.33MHz clock with synchronous transfer.

 32 bit or 64 bit bus width.

 32 bit address space.

 32 bit I/O port space.

 256 byte configuration space.

 AGP( Accelerated Graphics Port):-

 The AGP port is also called as ( Advance Graphics Port) is a high speed point to point channel for
attaching a graphics card to a computer’s motherboard, primarily to assist in the acceleration of
3D computer graphics.

 The AGP slot is designed to accept an AGP video card.

 AGP Transfer Rate:-

 The AGP Transfer are 32 bits wide but use 66.66MHz clock speed.

 Advantages of AGP over PCI

 AGP is superior to PCI because it provide a dedicated pathway between the slot and the
processor rather than sharing the PCI bus allowing for faster communication.

 Processor Bus:-

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  The processor bus is also called as Front side Bus. Which is the communication pathway
between the CPU and motherboard chipset, more specifically the North Bridge or
Memory Controller Hub.

 The FSB is an alternative name for the data and address bus of the CPU.

 The FSB serve as a connection between the CPU and the rest of the hardware via a
chipset.

 This bus runs with the full motherboard speed between 66MHz and 800MHz in modern
system depending upon the particular board and chipset design.

 This bus also transfer the data between the CPU and external cache(L2) memory.

 Logical Memory Organization:-

 Memory:-The system memory in the PC is often referred to as single number is in fact broken
into several different areas.

 Memory is divided into following areas.

 Conventional Memory:-

 Description:-

 The first 640 KB of System memory is called as conventional memory.

 This is the area that is available for use by standard DOS programs. Along with many drivers,
memory resident program and most anything else that has to run under standard DOS.

 Conventional memory is the only place where the programs runs.

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  In Conventional memory bottom 1k area is used to store interrupt vector pointers.

 Above is the DOS itself. It hard to say exactly how much space DOS takes. It generally depends
upon the version of DOS.

 Above the Dos there is a special class of programs called as device divers.

 Above the device drivers there is a COMMAND.COM, the most command shell is stored. This
accept input from users and reformulates them in a manner that the OS can understand.

 Above the command. COM there is TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) program .

 Above the TSR there is space for user program and data. In this user can load data and program

 Upper Memory Area (UMA):-

 The area above 640 KB are reserved as a Upper memory area (UMA).

 It is reserved for use by system device and for special uses such as ROM shadowing and drivers.

 It is important because it is the cause of many system configuration problems.

 High Memory Area( HMA):-

 The HMA is generally accessed when the processor is in real mode.

 It generally used for DOS to allow more conventional memory to be preserved .It occupies
addresses 100000h to 10FFEF h

 Extended Memory:-

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 Description:-

 All the memory above the first megabyte is called as extended memory.

 This is all about the high memory area until the end of the system memory.

 The extended memory is mainly used when the processor or operating system is running in the
protected mode.

 The extended memory is not accessible when the processor is running in real mode.

 The extended memory occupies the memory from the address 10FFF0h to the last address of
the system memory.

 Specification:-

 Best for windows and multitasking operating system.

 Only possible with machine based on 286 and later chips ,impossible with XTs.

 Used by Unix,Windows(3.x,95,98,Nt/2000/XP)

 Expanded Memory:-

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 Description:-

 An older standard to accessing memory above 1MB which is called as a expanded memory.

 The expanded memory uses a protocol called as expanded memory specification (EMS).

 One major disadvantage of the expanded memory is that unlike conventional and extended
memory it is not directly accessed by the processor.

 This type of memory is generally used for the system that does not have extended memory.

 The expanded memory is generally developed by Lotus ,Intel, Microsoft hence it is called as LIM
memory.

 Cache Memory:-

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 Description:-

 Types of Cache:

 Internal cache(L1 cache)

 External cache(L2 cache)

 Cache Memory Terms:

 Read Hit

 Read Miss

 Cache Advantages:-

 The cache memory enhance the speed of the system memory or improving
performance

 The cache memory reduces a traditional system bottleneck.

 As the cache memory is lies on the same chip(L1 cache) the data access time is very
small.

 The cache memory is the faster memory hence it take less time to execute the
instruction.

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  The cache memory is an intelligent memory.

 Cache Disadvantages:-

 Size is small.

 Cost is very High.

 Classification of RAM:-

 RAM:-

 RAM is called as Random Access Memory which is type of data storage used in the
computers.

 RAM is a working memory storage.

 All the data the PC uses and works during operation are stored here.

 Data are stored on drives ,typically the hard drive. However the CPU to work with those
data they must be read into the working memory storage which is made up of RAM
chips.

 Because of this speed and consistency , RAM is used as a Main Memory storage or
Primary Memory storage.

 Types of RAM:-

 Dynamic RAM.

 Static RAM.

 Dynamic RAM:-

 The dynamic RAM is called so because it has to be constantly refreshed by the memory
controller.

 The dynamic RAM required the constant refreshing because the capacitor the hold the
information or data have built in leak and that can be only stopped by refreshing the
information thousand of time in a second.

 This make the dynamic RAM slower as compared to Static RAM.

 Types of Dynamic RAM:-

 FPM (Fast Page Mode)

 ECC( Error Correcting Code)

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  EDO( Extended Data Output)

 SDRAM ( Synchronous Dynamic RAM)

 DDR (Double data rate):-

 The DDR stands for double data rate.

 As the name suggest the DDR transfer the data with the double rate as compared to the
other types of RAM such as SDRAM.

 The DDR operating with the speed of 333MHz is actually operate with the speed of
133MHz.

 DDR is a 2.5 volt technology that uses 184 pins in its DIMM.

 Features of DDR:-

 All DDR RAM chips have 184 pins.

 DDR RAM comes with the different speed.100MHz,133MHz,166MHz,200MHz.

 DDR RAM is twice faster that SDRAM

 Operating voltage is 2.5 volt

 Operation Max temperature is 850 c.

 It pre fetch 2 bits at a time.

 DDR2 RAM:-

 These chips are the next generation of DDR SDRAM memory.

 The DDR2 RAM is mounted on 240 pin DIMM module and operate with the high speed.

 The DDR2 have a capacity to hold 256 MB to 2 GB memory.

 The DDR2 is faster as compared to the DDR RAM and can transfer the data at twice the
speed of DDR.

 Features of DDR2:-

 DDR2 operates at the data rates of 400MHz,533MHz,667MHz and above.

 Higher bandwidth as compared with the DDR.

 Operating voltage is 1.8 volt.

 Operation Max temperature is 950 c.

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  It pre fetch 4 bits at a time.

 DDR3 RAM:-

 DDR3 or double data rate three synchronous dynamic random access memory is a random
access memory technology used for high speed storage of the working data of a computer.

 DDR3 are having the capacity of 512MB to 8GB.

 Features:-

 It works on very low power i.e.1.5v

 It pre fetch 8 bits at a time.

 Advantages:-

 Higher bandwidth which increases the performance

 Performance increase at very low power.

 Improve thermal design.

 Disadvantages:-

 Cost is more as compare to the DDR2 memory.

 Processor Modes:-

 Processor modes are also called as CPU modes or CPU privilege level .

 The processor modes are used by processor to create an operating environment for itself.

 Specifically the processor mode controls how the processor see and manages the system
memory.

 Types of Processor Modes:-

 Real Mode

 Protected Mode

 Virtual mode Real mode

 64 bit expansion mode

 Real Mode:-

 The real mode is generally designed for the original IBM PC, which can address only 1MB of
system memory.

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  The IBM PC uses original version of DOS.

 The real mode is generally work for DOS, that is a single tasking operating system ,meaning it
can handle one program running at a time.

 When the processor is running in the real mode it acts as 8088 processor, having the advantage
of speed.

 There is a memory access restriction when the processor is running in the real mode.

 It can access only 1MB of data.

 In simple word we can say that the real mode is generally used for the single tasking operating
system like DOS.

 Mean in real mode the processor can perform only one task at a time.

 Protected Mode:-

 The Protected mode is generally designed for the IBM AT 80286 processor.

 The protected mode is much more powerful mode of operation than real mode.

 The protected mode is generally used for multitasking operating system.

 Means in protected mode processor can perform multiple task at one time.

 Advantages:-

 Full access of all the system memory.

 Ability to multitasking, means having the OS manage the execution of multiple program
simultaneously.

 Support the virtual memory ,which allow the system to use the hard disk to emulate additional
system memory when needed.

 Faster 32 bit access to memory.

 BIOS (Basic input output system):-

 The BIOS provide the processor with the information required to boot the system from a non
volatile storage unit (HDD,FDD,CD or other).

 The BIOS is an electronic set of instruction that a computer uses to successfully start operating
system.

 The BIOS located on a chip inside of the computer and design in a way that protect it from disk
failure .

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  Function of BIOS:-

 To give the instruction for the power on self test (POST).

 The POST ensure that the computer has all of the necessary parts and functionality
needed to successfully start itself, such as memory, keyboard and other devices.

 If the errors are detected during the test, the BIOS instruct the computer a code to
reveals the problem. Error codes are typically a series of beep heard shortly after
startup.

 The BIOS also works to give the computer basic information about how to interact with
some critical components, such as drives and memory that it will need to load the
operating system.

 Once the basic instruction have been loaded and the self test has been passed, the
computer can proceed with loading the operating system from one of the attached
device,

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