How a Motherboard on a Computer Works

Bus lines on the back of a motherboard

1. Get on the bus

Bus lines on the back of a motherboard Motherboards are nothing more than very large and complex circuit boards. And like all circuit boards, motherboards send data in the form of electricity via the bus. The bus (or bus lines) are all those little wires that can be seen on the back of a circuit board. They are usually made from copper, though very high-end boards use gold. As electricity is sent across these lines, the receiving components convert the electricity into machine language. Machine language is represented as the binary system.

2. Yes/No...Binary
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Binary is a base two number system, meaning it only has two numbers: 0 and 1. When the component on the motherboard receives the electricity string, it assigns a 1 where there is electricity and a 0 where there isn't any. This creates a binary string like 100110101110110. While that may not look like much to a human, a computer understands it perfectly as its native tongue. A group of eight 1s and 0s makes a byte, from which we get megabyte and gigabyte. Each byte gives instructions or provides data.

The Bosses

A Northbridge chip under a heatsink to keep it cool There are two chips on the motherboard that control everything that is sent on the bus: the Northbridge and Southbridge. Think of these chips like security guards-nothing gets in or out without their permission. The Northbridge is responsible for controlling data access for the processor, RAM and video controller. The Southbridge is responsible for data access for every other component on the motherboard. The two chips work together to ensure data is flowing in the right way at the right time.

W takes a trip
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When a key is pressed on a keyboard (for example, the letter W), the keyboard converts the key press to the binary equivalent of the key. For the capital letter W, that would be 01010111. This code is converted to electricity and flows up the keyboard cable to the PS/2 port on the back of the computer. The PS/2 port is attached to a bus on the motherboard. The signal then travels via that bus to the Southbridge. The Southbridge sends the signal to the Northbridge, which sends it to the processor and RAM. Once the processor tells the Northbridge to display the letter, the Northbridge sends the signal--via the bus--to the monitor port and then up the line to be displayed on the monitor.