CompTIA+ Upgrading A PC

Motherboard The motherboard also known as the main board or system board or planar board. It contains most of the important components, including the chipset, which controls essential functions inside a Computer. The key components of a motherboard are CPU socket / slot, BIOS - ROM chip, Chipset (North / South Bridge or memory and I/O Controller hubs), Expansion slots, and Memory area - SIMMs or DIMMs. The motherboard directly interacts with other components of the Computer, and is responsible for the stability, feature support, expandability and upgrading ability of any system to a maximum extent.Irrespective of the upgrade you consider, the motherboard must be taken into consideration first. It must be checked whether the motherboard supports additional memory and whether it supports latest processor and hard drives, does it have the spare slot for the upgrade?

Motherboard (Cont...) When to upgrade a motherboard?A motherboard, along with a high-speed processor and a good amount of RAM (minimum of 256MB for most applications), dramatically improves the system's performance.Your existing computer's motherboard needs to be upgraded when you want:

• A High-end processor and the current motherboard does not support it.
• More physical memory than supported by the current motherboard.
• Faster bus technologies such as VESA , AGP, PCI, and PCI express.
• Advanced performance and features available in the latest motherboards.
• High-speed ports like USB, Blue tooth etc.

Motherboard (Cont...) When you need to upgrade a computer to a newer or faster processor and any other components, you should check whether the existing motherboard supports them. You can refer to the motherboard manual for technical specifications. If not then the motherboard needs to be upgraded keeping the future requirements in mind.The most important things that must be considered while upgrading a motherboard are:Motherboard Chipset - It is the backbone of a computer. If you want a high performance computer then you should choose a chipset that supports DDR SDRAM or RDRAM.Processor - A modern system should use a socket-based processor with a L2 cache and with the highest speed CPU bus (FSB).Processor Sockets/Slots - In order to get good performance of the system, socket type processors should be preferred against slot based processor types. Socket 939 and Socket 754 for the Athlon 64, Socket 478 for the Pentium 4 and Celeron processors are commonly found on motherboards these days.

Motherboard (Cont...) SIMM/DIMM Memory - Motherboard should support either standard or DDR DIMMs that contain SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, or RDRAM respectively. SIMMs is old fashioned by today's standards, so any boards that use them should be avoided.Bus Type - Latest motherboards are not incorporating ISA bus slots, instead using one to five or more PCI local bus slots.Processor Sockets/Slots - Mini or baby ATX is the mainly used form factor for personal computers, which can support Pentium 4-class processors, replacing the old AT form factor used mainly with the 386-class processor.Built-in Interfaces - Motherboard should contain as many built-in standard controllers and interfaces as possible. Built-in sound card and built-in video adapters are a standard in most motherboards today.

Motherboard (Cont...) The relationship between cache memory and motherboard.The latest computers use a very small amount of very fast memory that is known as cache memory between the CPU and the main memory. In most computers, there are two types of cache memory available. The Level 1 (L1) cache is found in the advanced processor like Pentium III and IV the Level 2 (L2) cache memory (optional) found on the motherboard in the most advanced processor-based systems.The performance of the cache memory is measured by how fast it can access the information. Running the memory at the same speed as the processor bus reduces the need to have a cache memory on the motherboard.Some latest computers use processors with integrated cache while some have cache directly on the processor chip for maximum speed.

Memory When to upgrade the Computer Memory?Current processors can perform an enormous number of operations per second. The hard drive, on the other hand, is significantly slower to handle so much information. This is where a high-speed RAM memory comes in.One of the most cost effective ways to boost the computer's performance is to add Random Access Memory (RAM). If you are using any computer running on Windows 95 or greater and have less than 64MB (megabytes) of memory then you will notice a performance improvement by adding more memory. If you add or upgrade the memory to 64MB or 128MB, computers show a visible improvement in performance, which includes faster application start-up time.Microsoft recommends 128MB as a minimum amount of memory for running Windows XP on the computer. For running today's computer software and operating systems, 512MB of memory is better.The memory used in older computers is 30-pin or 72-pin Single Inline Memory Modules (SIMM), whereas Dual Inline Memory Modules (DIMM) modules are used today

Memory (Cont...) Upgrading the MemoryFor some motherboards, DIMM memory can be installed in any available expansion slot. Others may require the memory to be installed in a particular sequence based on the modules capacity. Check the computer's manual to determine the correct installation sequence for configuration.Insert the module into an available expansion socket. Note how the module is keyed to the socket. This ensures the module can be plugged into the socket one way only. Firmly press the module into position, making certain the module is completely seated in the socket. Repeat this procedure for any additional modules you are installing.Most 168-pin DIMM modules have ejector tabs. The ejector tabs are used only when you need to remove a module. By pressing down on the ejector tabs, the module will pop-up from the socket and it can be removed.

Hard Drives When to upgrade the hard drive?The capacity of hard drives has grown exponentially. In the early 1990s, hard drives were of capacities of 1 gigabyte and greater. As of early 2005, the simple desktop hard disk in production has a capacity of 40 gigabytes. As far as PC history is concerned, the major drive families have been MFM, RLL, ESDI, SCSI, IDE, and now SATA.The need to upgrade hard disk arises when you have data which is filling up the space in the hard drive at an alarming rate. A normal home based computer with minimum usage like office applications, e-mail and internet requires a hard disk of 4 GB or less than that.

Hard Drives (Cont...) Hard Disk upgradingBefore upgrading your hard disk it's best to do a complete disk checkup including disk scan, de-fragmentation, etc. If you happen to be an average user and need more storage you can add an additional drive to the existing one. Before an upgrade, be sure to back up your files. Whenever you add or upgrade a hard drive to a system, mostly the new drive should be installed and configured to the boot drive.Generally the new hard disk will be bigger and faster than the one your PC currently uses. Hence it is better to make the new drive your primary drive where the operating system and applications resides. You can attach the old drive as a secondary hard disk and use it for archives and less frequently accessed data.

CPU Processor SpeedThe speed of the processor depends on many different factors, some of which are related to the architecture of the processor itself that controls the internal timing requirements which limits the maximum speed a processor can handle. Manufacturing factors relate to the process technology used, circuit size, die size and process quality.A computer system's clock speed is measured as a frequency, usually expressed as a number of cycles per second. A typical computer system runs millions of these cycles per second, so speed is measured in megahertz (MHz). (One hertz is equal to one cycle per second.) Modern systems use a variable frequency synthesizer circuit usually found in the main motherboard chipset to control the motherboard speed and CPU speed.The leading manufactures of computer processors for all the architectures of Servers and Workstations are Intel and AMD; there are a few others like Cyrix, IBM, Texas Instruments, and Rise Technology. The processors designed by any of the smaller players are generally competitive with equivalents manufactured by Intel or AMD.

CPU (Cont...) How and When to Upgrade ProcessorsProcessor change should be considered when the computer is taking too long to perform a task or to load an application. Consider the cache when upgrading the processor. It is the specialized memory that resides on or near the processor. As it effectively increases the speed of a computer by fetching data from system RAM so the processor does not need to wait to access data before performing tasks .When upgrading a CPU, the points to be considered are:

• The maximum speed that the motherboard can support.
• Is there a need for additional hardware when upgrading the CPU such as a Heat sink?
• If you upgrade the processor, you will have faster execution of instructions but it leaves the RAM and hard drive capacity unchanged.

BIOS What Is BIOS?The BIOS (Basic Input / Output System) is a chip on the computer's motherboard that is designed to provide the interface required between hardware devices such as hard disks, display and the software usually operating system. The BIOS has instructions as to how to load the basic computer hardware along with a test usually referred to as a POST (Power On Self Test) that ensures that the computer meets the requirements to boot up properly. In case the computer fails to pass the POST then there will be a combination of beep sounds that indicate a malfunctioning within the computer.The BIOS usually has 4 main functions:POST - Before the process of loading the Operating System is initialized, POST tests the computer hardware to see if they are properly functioning.Bootstrap Loader - It is a process of locating the operating system. In case a active Operating system is found BIOS will pass the control to it.BIOS - Software / Drivers which interfaces between the operating system and the hardware.CMOS Setup - It is a configuration program that allows configuring of hardware settings such as computer passwords, time, and date.

BIOS (Cont...)
Click on the image to zoomWhen Is A BIOS Update Necessary?The following list shows the benefits of a ROM BIOS upgrade:

• Adds support for hard drives greater than 10GB
• Adds support for Ultra-DMA / 33, UDMA / 66, UDMA / 100, or faster IDE hard drives
• Adds or improves Plug-and-Play support and compatibility
• Corrects calendar-related bugs
• Corrects known bugs or compatibility problems with certain hardware and software
• Adds support for newer or faster processors

In general, if a computer is not able to utilize all the features of new software or hardware, it may need a BIOS upgrade.

Adapter Cards Adapter Cards are also referred to as controller cards, expansion cards, or interface cards. They accommodate the flow of data as well as the instructions between the CPU and the devices thereby enhancing the capability of the computer viz. memory expansion, advanced graphics, sound, I/O expansion, etc.These are installed or plugged into slots on the motherboard, or bus extensions such as the Local Bus. They enhance the flexibility of the computer in accepting devices such as monitors, memory adapters and parallel and serial peripherals.The slots that they fit into are:

• ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) Slot.
• PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Slot.
• AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) Slot.
• PCI-Express Slot.

Adapter Cards (Cont...) Upgrading a Video CardA video card provides signals that operate the computer monitor. A computer will have either an AGP graphics or PCI Express (PCIe) graphics. With the arrival of graphic intensive games, the video card manufacturers have integrated a processor and memory on the video card. The greater the memory, the faster the processor, the higher the quality of the game produced by the monitor.Most mid-range and faster graphics chipsets no longer support the PCI slot. Besides faster throughput, AGP has two other big advantages over PCI for video:

• AGP has a dedicated direct connection to the processor instead of sharing bandwidth with other PCI slot and motherboard devices.
• AGP can use onboard or motherboard RAM for handling 3D textures.

Some of the latest video cards in the market are AGP PCIe, Radeon 9600 XT, GeForce 6800 Ultra Radeon X800 XT, etc.