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What's Inside My Computer? (1)
Have you ever wondered what exactly is inside the computer case? Here is a brief outline of what you can expect to see if you venture to open it up! Here is a typical looking computer case with the side panel removed. It's a bit on the senior side, probably 3 or 4 years old, which is about the 'out of date' side of computer life these days! To the left of the processor is an additional fan, who's sole purpose in life is to remove unwanted heat and dust from inside the case.
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This particular model has two hard-drives installed, as well as two optical drives, both are re-writers, but one can 'burn' DVD's and CD's, whilst the other one can only burn CD's.
The idea of having two hard-drives fitted is so that Windows (XP in this example) lives on one drive, whilst all the documents, photos etc live on the other drive. If Windows should ever crash and require re-installing, at least your precious documents are safe on a seperate drive. However, should the second drive fail, then you are in trouble as all your photos and socuments are potentially lost, but at least your copy of Windows is safe. The answer is to back up your documents periodically onto DVD's or CD's and store them away safely. There are two additional extraction fans fitted to the case, one is beside the processor fan, the other is in the 'roof' of the case. As heat rises, this is probably an ideal place to put an additional fan! |
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The case fan mentioned above looks something like this. As I said above, it's sole job in life is to remove heat. Some gamer's computers have multiple fans, principally because the more fans you have fitted, the cooler the computer remains, the cooler the computer, the faster it runs - in theory. |
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The Power Supply looks something like this one. The wattage varies according to the manufacturer, but the minimum you should be looking at is 250w, up to 600w for a gaming computer.
Power supplies are air cooled, and supply all the computer's 'mains' electricity, including power to the Motherboard, Optical Drives, Harddrive, fans and sometimes direct to the graphics card. |
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This is what your heatsink and CPU fan is more likely to look like on an average computer. Underneath the heatsink is the processor (see below), but the heatsink's job is, with the fan, to remove heat from the processor.
As you can see, the heatsink looks vaguely like a car's radiator, and works in a broadly similar fashion, in an air-cooled car that is! The fan sucks hot air away from the heatsink and into the computer case. Your additional case fans then extract the hot air away from the interior. The power lead shown here attaches itself to the computer's motherboard. It is very impoirtant to keep this fan (and the heatsink) clear of dust which tends to accumulate over time. Use either a can of compressed air, or lightly go over the area with a soft brush and a vacuum cleaner to remove unwanted dust. |
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The CD or DVD drive is shown here. Some computers have two, most have one. If you are buying a new one, it is better to get a DVD-RW (Digital Versatile Disc Re-Writer), rather than a CD-RW (Compact Disc Re-Writer) as the DVD-RW will copy and 'burn' both CD's and DVD's, whilst the CD-RW will only copy/burn CD's. It's worth the extra couple of quid! |
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The way a computer sends messages within itself from (for example) the harddrive to the motherboard, is via this object, an IDE cable (also known as a ribbon cable).
As you can see, the part that fits into the 'female' part has a notch in it which means that it will only fit in one way. Normally, the end that fits into the motherboard is coloured, in this case blue. Ribbon cables are slowly being replaced by thinner, rounder IDE cables to allow for better air circulation within the case. |
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This is what the world famous processor looks like, up close and personal! Everyone has heard of the Intel Pentium Processor, well this is one of its main rivals, the AMD Turion.
Unless you have a really good reason to, leave these things alone! They are easily damaged and once they are damaged, won't work anymore. They aren't made in a dust-proof factory for no reason! CPU is an abbreviation of Central Processing Unit, and pronounced as separate letters. Sometimes referred to simply as the processor or central processor, the CPU is where most calculations take place. In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important element of a computer system. On large machines, CPUs require one or more printed circuit boards. On personal computers and small workstations, the CPU is housed in a single chip called a microprocessor. Two typical components of a CPU are: The arithmetic logic unit (ALU), which performs arithmetic and logical operations. The control unit, which extracts instructions from memory and decodes and executes them, calling on the ALU when necessary. |