Vatamalt





A case that contains the electronic components of the computer that are used to process data

The basic parts of a computer system are held in a case called the system unit. The system unit can be tall or short or can include a monitor, as with some Macintosh/apple computers. You will not need to open your computer system but knowing what s inside and how the parts work together is important.

Inside the system unit there are several green plastic or fiberglass boards called circuit boards. The largest circuit board is the motherboard. It is about the size of a notebook paper. In the desktop system unit the motherboard is flat on the bottom. The mother board usually contains several kinds of chips. The largest circuit board is the central processing unit. It is also called a microprocessor.

HARD DRIVE
Hard drives spin at 3600 or more rpm (Revolutions Per Minute) - that means that in one minute, the hard drive spins around over 3600 times! Today's hard drives can hold a great deal of information - sometimes over 20GB! Inside the hard disk drive case you will find circular disks, referred to ask platters, that are made from polished steel. On the platters, there are many tracks or cylinders.

The CPU is the part that directs all the other parts to do their jobs. The CPU: Carries out user instructions Collects items stored in primary storage or memory Sends messages between the CPU and other computer elements Carries out the steps in a program Tells other pieces of equipment such as a printer or modem what to do and when to do.

Also included on the motherboards are expansion boards. They fit into slots called expansion slots on the motherboard. They allow an input/output device to communicate with the CPU.

On the inside of the case, they are connected to expansion cards. The keyboard, mouse, monitor, and printer all plug into ports. There are also extra ports to plug in extra hardware like gamepads, scanners, digital cameras and the...