The Motherboard
The motherboard (sometimes referred to as system or main board) in your computer is a highly complicated piece of hardware. It is the basis of any computer, and possibly its single most important part. The typical motherboard contains a number of individual components, including:
CPU socket (or slot)
CPU voltage regulators
Chip set
Memory SIMM or DIMM sockets
Level 2 cache
Bus slots
ROM BIOS
Level 2 cache
Super I/O chip
Clock/CMOS battery
All the critical subsystems run directly off of your system's motherboard, and it manages all the data transactions between the CPU and the computer's peripherals. Motherboard
Major Components
It's a good idea to identify the crucial parts of your system's motherboard. Although each motherboard is designed differently, its actually quite easy to identify most of the major components by their size, shape and placement. Of course, having your system's manual on hand will make this task a lot easier.
The physical dimensions (shape and size) of the motherboard dictate the type of case it can fit into. There are several common dimension standards for motherboards. Because non-standard boards are hard to upgrade, it is wise to avoid them. A truly standardized motherboard is interchangeable with other boards of its type.
A few of the most common standards for motherboards are: Full-sized AT, Baby-AT, ATX and NLX. Systems that use proprietary motherboards, such as Compaq and Packard Bell, can be very expensive or even impossible to upgrade or repair after the warranty has expired.
Sockets and Slots
When examining your motherboard, you'll likely find it designated something like "Socket 7," "Socket 8," or "Slot 1." These classifications refer to the type of CPU that the motherboard can support.
For example:
Socket 7 motherboards are generally designed for Pentium and Penium MMX CPUs Socket 8 motherboards are made for PentiumPro CPUs. Slot 1 motherboards are for Pentium II systems.
These designations mean that the motherboard supports a given class of processor, as opposed to any such processor. Some Socket 7 motherboards can support all Pentium and Pentium MMX CPUs, but older Socket 7 motherboards might only support Pentium CPUs up to 120MHz.
Chip Sets
If the CPU is the brain of your computer, the chip set is its heart. It controls the data that flow between your computer's CPU, system memory and the system bus. Chip sets are intelligent controller chips that are located on the motherboard. They are a critical component that is closely related to the CPU because they control the buses around it. Chip sets are the mechanism that allows the RAM and the I/O buses to work with the CPU.
Comprised of one or more chips, chip sets integrate numerous functions, including the Clock Generator, Bus Controller, System Timer, Interrupt Controller, DMA Controller, CMOS RAM Clock and Keyboard Controller.
There are many different chip sets and new, improved (faster, added capabilities) chip sets are introduced continuously. Historically, Intel has been the leader in chip set technology, releasing successive generations with new and more powerful features, but a number of other companies (Acer Laboratories, VIA Technologies and Silicon integrated Systems to name three) manufacture chip sets as well.
One warning: swapping a new Pentium II board into an older system chassis may be hazardous to your new CPU. The Pentium II (Slot 1) cooling requirements are substantially different than the Pentium (Socket 7).
Motherboard Problems
Because your computer's motherboard is a complex piece of electronics that handles numerous system resources, troubleshooting problems can be difficult and time consuming. And because it is expandable -- allowing for the addition of "expansion devices" such as sound cards and the like -- resource conflicts can result when you add new devices (there are three types of resources provided by the motherboard for expansion devices: Interrupt Requests, DMA channels, and I/O port addresses).
As expansion devices are added to a PC, resources are assigned to each particular device and no two devices may use the same resources -- if this happens, conflicts occur and the system will work improperly or not at all. You can get more help with such resource conflict in our I/O & Expansion Cards troubleshooting section.
When problems are indicated with your motherboard, it is wise to do the following general checks to make sure the problem isn't a basic one. Always remember to unplug the system when working on it and to use proper ESD protection.
Check all cables and connectors. Make sure all cables are seated securely. Make sure all of your cables are in good working order, do not have frayed or damaged edges or ends, and are not crimped by the cover when replacing it.
Check all socket-mounted components such as the CPU. Make sure they are securely seated, and that any locking levers are tightly locked down.
Check power levels, including the wall outlet and other devices (such as printers or coffee pots) that may be using the same circuit and causing power fluctuations.
Check the motherboard for foreign objects such as loose screws, loose wires, or other objects that may be short circuiting it. Make sure there are no cracks.
Use your manual to confirm that all the jumpers and dip switches on the motherboard are correctly set.
Before taking the drastic step of replacing your motherboard, go to the next level of troubleshooting steps:
Remove all optional devices from the motherboard, including expansion boards, external peripherals, etc. so that you just the minium in the machine required to make it work (CPU, full bank of memory, video card and drive). See if that resolves the problem.
Reset all CMOS BIOS settings to the default, conservative values to make sure an overly aggressive BIOS setting isn't causing the problem. Set all cache, memory and hard disk timing to as slow as possible and turn off BIOS shadowing.
Try replacing the video card with a known-good one.
Try replacing the power supply with a newer, more powerful one.
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