Motherboard Architecture, Processors, Memory, and BIOS Course ILT
Unit objectives Explain various motherboard buses and describe how clock frequency affects performance Identify common server processors Identify various types of memory Configure the BIOS and identify common server configuration items
Motherboard Architecture, Processors, Memory, and BIOS Course ILT
Topic A: Motherboard architecture Topic B: Processors Topic C: Memory Topic D: The basics of health insurance
The Bus
A bus provides the data path to and from server components such as the processor and memory on the motherboard Motherboard bus width corresponds to individual data wires that transmit data The more wires, the more data the motherboard can transmit over a given period of time
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The Bus
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A motherboard includes a front side bus, sometimes a back side bus, and three primary I/O expansion buses:
Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) Extended ISA (EISA) Peripheral Components Interconnect (PCI)
Bus speed is dependent upon clock frequency
Clock Frequency
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Clock frequency refers to the number of times in one second that an electrically charged quartz crystal located on the motherboard vibrates Measured in megahertz (MHz) Processor requires at least one cycle for each instruction it executes
Chipset Function
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Chipset is a group of motherboard chips that operate at the same speed as the motherboard clock and provide the boundaries between buses
Chipset Function
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Most PC server vendors use Intel chipsets
Hierarchical Bus
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Slower buses are structured below faster buses
Front side bus PCI bus ISA bus
Hierarchical Bus
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Accelerated Hub Architecture
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Connects buses to the system bus independently through a dedicated interface to the PCI bus
Bus Interfaces
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ISA - accommodates 8- and 16-bit devices EISA - 32-bit; provides backward compatibility with ISA slots PCI - currently the most widely used bus interface
Interfaces high-speed devices with the system bus to prevent bottlenecks
PCI
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PCI-X
Update to PCI Higher bandwidth; performance Relaxed ordering instead of FIFO
PCI
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Bus mastering
First-party direct memory access (DMA) Frees the processor from processing requests, improving performance
PCI interrupts allow PCI devices to interrupt the processor to handle a request immediately
PCI
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PCI hot swap allows you to add, remove, or replace PCI devices without powering down the server You may have to turn off the power to the slot
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PCI
PCI
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Peer PCI bus - increases bandwidth and expands the number of PCI expansion cards I2O
Processor/driver model Allows I/O devices to handle processing themselves
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)
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Utilizes a single AGP slot on motherboards Fastest speed is 8X, but most PCI cards operate at 2X speed
Activity A-1
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Discussing motherboards
Motherboard Architecture, Processors, Memory, and BIOS Course ILT
Topic A: Motherboard architecture Topic B: Processors Topic C: Memory Topic D: The basics of health insurance
Processors
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Processor speed
The number of opportunities per second that the processor can execute an action Measured in MHz
Cache memory
Stores recently or frequently used code or data Level 1 (L1) Level 2 (L2)
Processors
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Processors
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Server processors
Pentium Pro Pentium II Pentium II Xeon Pentium III Pentium III Xeon Pentium 4 Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
Processors
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64-bit processors
Intel Itanium AMD Sledgehammer
Activity B-1
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Discussing processors
Motherboard Architecture, Processors, Memory, and BIOS Course ILT
Topic A: Motherboard architecture Topic B: Processors Topic C: Memory Topic D: The basics of health insurance
Memory
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A 168-pin DIMM - dual inline memory module
Memory
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SDRAM - synchronous dynamic RAM
Operates at clock speed
Memory
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RDRAM - Rambus DRAM
Provides extremely fast 800 MHz internal clock speed on a 400 MHz bus
DDR SDRAM - Double data rate SDRAM
Open standard Next generation of SDRAM
Memory
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A 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM
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Memory
Memory
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Interleaving allows memory access between two or more memory banks or boards to occur alternately, minimizing wait states
Memory
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Interleaving between banks of memory
Memory
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Interleaving between boards of memory
Memory
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Buffered and registered memory
Amplify the signal entering the module Found on servers or high-end workstations
Error Correcting Code (ECC)
Calculates check bits and appends them to the data during memory writes
Activity C-1
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Researching processors and memory
Motherboard Architecture, Processors, Memory, and BIOS Course ILT
Topic A: Motherboard architecture Topic B: Processors Topic C: Memory Topic D: CMOS, BIOS, and POST
CMOS, BIOS, and POST
CMOS (complimentary metal oxide semiconductor) includes a small amount of memory to store BIOS settings such as boot order, hard disk configuration, and power management settings BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is a series of software programs that is the lowest level of communication between the hardware and the OS
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CMOS, BIOS, and POST
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POST (power-on self-test) - verifies the functionality of motherboard hardware POST checks the following:
Video card and monitor CPU stepping CPU model and speed BIOS version RAM
CMOS, BIOS, and POST
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POST checks the following (cont.):
Keyboard Various ports (USB, serial, parallel) Floppy and hard disk drives Disk controller using separate BIOS CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Sound cards Operating system
CMOS, BIOS, and POST
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Protecting the CMOS is an important security consideration
Protect the system physically Set passwords
Common BIOS Settings
Ultra DMA settings Processor PCI bus mastering RAM testing Memory scrubbing Security Management port
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Common BIOS Settings
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Logging Management interrupt General hardware information I2O drives
Common BIOS Settings
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Common BIOS Settings
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Activity D-1
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Accessing the BIOS
Unit Summary
Explained various motherboard buses and described how clock frequency affects performance Identified common server processors Identified various types of memory Configured the BIOS and identified common server configuration items
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