Chapter 2

System unit : base unit of the computer made up of the plastic or metal enclosure, the motherboard
and the integrated peripherals
Motherboard : circuit board that connects the central processing unit to the other system
components
Integrated peripherals ; devices that are embedded to within the system unit case and generally
include power supply, the cooling fan, memory, cd drive , dvd drive, and internal hard drive
System units come in different styles and have varying FOOTPRINTS the amount of the unit uses
System units vary in their form factor which specifies how the internal components are located
within the system unit
System unit main components ;
• Motherboard
• CPU
• Power supply
• Cooling systems
• Internal speakers
• Drive bays
• Expansion slot

Motherboard : the main circuit board in the computer system that connects all of the internal
systems
The memory the processor graphic card and other hardware it also provides power for each
component and allows them to communicate with each other.
Attached to the motherboard the following components either directly or indirectly :
CPU = directly
Memory (RAM,ROM,Cache) = directly
Chipset = directly
Cooling system ( heat,sink and fan ) = indirectly
Hard drives, CD and DVD drive = indirectly
The majority of parts found in the motherboard are integrated circuits (ICs)
The main integrated chip in the computer is the central processing unit (CPU)
An integrated circuit (or chip ) includes million transistors and carries electrical (urrent
Transistor : a switch that is able to control the electrical signal flow of the circuit (on/off)

The pc chipset is divided into

Northbridge = CPU - memory communication
Southbridge = PC - peripherals communication

Expansion slot : a special slot inside the system unit that enable you to add more devices
(functionality do not exist in your device ) on expansion card
Examples of cards :
• sound card
• Network card
• Graphic card
• Modem card

Cooling system : modern CPU generate a lot of heat and thus require system to avoid
overheating
Ways of cooling
1- Air cooling systems ( consist of heat sink and cooling fan)
Heat sink: a big slab of copper or an aluminum that helps draw help heat away from the
processor
The fan then blows the heat out into the case
2- liquid cooling systems ( consist of water block, a pump a radiator and a pipe)
Power supply : provides the necessary electrical power to make the pc operate
The power supply takes standard 220-volt (Alternating current ) AC power and
converts it into 12- volt, 5-volt and 3.3-volt (direct current ) DC power
Different voltage for different components
Hard drive : store the programs and data that are not currently being used by the CPU (non-
volatile component )
Types of drives :
• hard disk drive (HDD )
• Solid state drive (SDD)
The drive connected to the motherboard through connections
Type of connections (interfaces):
• parallel advanced technology attachment (PATA ) old
• Serial advanced technology attachment (SATA ) old
• Small computer system interface (SCSI)
• Non-volatile memory express(NVMe) newest

Every peripheral connects to the system unit through one of the many types of connectors
The back of the typical system unit has a lot of cables running from the system unit to the different
peripherals
All these connectors have their own naming conventions and good tech knows all of them and
should fit in one of the following groups. (Port, plug, Jack)
Connectors examples :
Mini-din ps2/2
DB connector 9 to 37 pin ports
USB type-A type-B Type-C
Firewire IEEE hot swappable
RJ connectors RJ11 and RJ14 modem RJ45 ethernet network
Audio connectors
HDMI sound and video
Display port
Video connector VGA VDI S-video
USB has a number of features that make it particularly popular on PCs (most common port
in computer ) the most common port in the computer.
USB devices are hot swappable which means you can insert or remove them without
restarting your PC
Plug-and-play : set of standards developed by intel corporation and Microsoft which
enables computer to automatically detect the brand, model,m and characteristics of a
device when you plug in and configure the system accordingly
Many USB devices get their electrical power through the USB connections so they
don’t need batteries or plugs for an electrical outlet.
USB is used in charge devices (Smartphones)
The main integrated circuit chip is that processes electronic system is the central processing unit
CPU also known is the microprocessor or processor
It interprets and carries out software instructions by processing data and controlling the rest of
the computer’s component
The processor calculates (add and multiplies and so on) performs logical operations (compares
numbers and make decisions ) and control the transfer of data among devices
Many electronics and mechanical devices we use daily such as smartphones calculators
automobile engines and industrial and medical equipment contain embedded processors
In order to fit the CPU in the motherboard a specific processor packaging should be
used to hold the processor and attach it the motherboard socket
Types of packages:
• Pin grind array (PGA)
• Land grind array (LGA)
• Ball grind array (BGA)
A computer program is sequence of instructions the CPU can execute
The program should be stored in a memory
Each operation (program ) performed by the CPU is assigned a specific number of instructions
In general different processors are there in the market with different characteristics :
• different speed (clock rate)
• Different architecture
• Different instructions set
Instructions set : list of CPU instructions that the CPU can support
The CPU understand 0 and 1 based programs (machine code)
While general programs are written using high level language which is referred to source code
(C++ , C< Python, Java,etc)
The HLL code should be converted to machine code using system tools:
Compiler : take source programs (high level language ) and converts them to assembly
program.
Assembler : takes assembly program and convert it to machine code (object file or library)
Linker : it takes multiple object file and libraries and converts it to a single executable program
Loader : takes the executable program and store it in the memory
The main parts of the cpu are :
1- control unit
2- arithmetic logic unit
3- registers
The control unit retrieves instructions from memory and interprets and performs those
instructions
The control unit manages the machine cycle or processing cycle the four part process
performed by the CPU
• fetch
• Decode
• Execute
• Store
 Fetch : retrieves the next program instruction from the computer’s RAM or cache memory
Decode : determines what the program is telling the computer to do and translate the fetched
instructions into form that the control unit understand
Execute : performs the requested instruction using ALU
Store : stores the results to an internal register or in the RAM
An arithmetic logical unit: performs arithmetic and logical operations
Arithmetic operations : involves adding subtracting multiplying and division
Logical operation ; involves comparison between two or more data items ( and,or, not,xor)

Register : small memory elements to store data when it must be temporarily stored in the CPU
during the execution of instructions

Examples of registers :
PC program counter
Instruction register
General purpose register

Factors that affect the performance of a CPU :

Number of existing transistors : less size of transistor allow add more transistors and better
performance
Data bus width and word size : bigger data bus width better performance
Clock speed ( frequency ) : higher frequency leads to better performance
Operations per microprocessor cycle
Increase the number of operation within specific time, increase the performance (dual core
quad core and octa core )
Use of parallel processing
Type of chip
 Data bus : a group of parallel wires that connect the CPU’s internal components
Data bus width is measured in bits ( 8 16,32 and 64 )
The maximum number of the bits the cpu can process once is called word size
Word size determines which operating system and software a cpu can run
The more bits can be processed at once the better performance
The system clock is an electronic circuit that produces rapid pluses and coordinates the
computer’s internal activities.
The clock speed is the measurement of the electrical pluses generated by the system clock
to synchronize the computer’s internal activities including the movement from one stage of
the machine cycle to another
Usually measured in gigahertz (GHz) billions of cycles per second.
System clock is the processor speed
In general the higher the clock speed is the faster is the computer.

Operation per cycle :

The number of operations per tick of the system clock affects microprocessor performance
Different architectures are implemented to increase operation per cycle
Superscalar architecture enables the CPU to perform more than one instruction for each
clock cycle
Pipelining enables the CPU to process more than one instruction at a time to improve CPU
performance
Parallel processing : a method in which more than one processor performs at the same time
resulting in faster processing
The idea is to speed up the execution of a program by dividing the program into multiple
fragments that can execute simultaneously each one its own processor
Multi-core processing : the newest computers being sold are equipped with dual-core and
quad-core processors
 (RAM)
Temporarily stores data and instructions to be used by the central processing unit
It is considered volatile because it contents are erased when the computer shuts off
The purpose of RAM is to
• receive and hold program instructions and data while being used by the system
• Provide those instructions and data to CPU when needed
• Hold the results of the CPU’s processing until an instruction is received to transfer in to a
printer or permanent storage device
The memory is divided into locations each with address
All memory locations have the same size

Read-only-memory (ROM)
Contains prerecorded instructions used to start the computer
It is considered non-volatile because its contents are stored when computer shuts off
Cache memory :
Small unit of fast memory built into a processor to improve performance
It is more expensive than RAM Faster and smaller in size
Comes in two types :
1- primary cache : found in the micro processor
2- secondary cache : located on the circuit board
Why the computer needs cache memory ?
The key is the ACCESS TIME the less time to retrieve data from a memory could increase the
performance of the computer and this is not the case with RAM
A memory with less access time is needed therefore cache is introduced