Experiment 1

American International University- Bangladesh

Faculty of Engineering (EEE)
Computer System Architecture Laboratory

Title: PC Systems, Motherboard, Peripherals, Expansion slots, Power supply

Objective:
Getting familiar with PC Systems, Motherboard, Peripherals, Expansion slots, Power supply and
their operation. Getting familiar with Raspberry Pi microcontroller.

Theory:
1.1 PC System:
Central Processing Unit: The CPU is the single most important component within a computer
system. The CPU coordinates almost all activities in a computer system. The CPU is sometimes
referred to as the computers “brain”.

CPU Speeds: The speed of a CPU is determined by an internal clock. Using a quartz crystal, the
CPU clock breathes life into the CPU by feeding it a constant flow of pulses. For example, a
200MHz CPU receives 200 million pulses per second.

CPUs are measured how fast they can process information.

The speed is measured in Mega Hertz (million) or Giga Hertz (billion) clock cycles per second.
A 1.1 GHz process means that the CPU can do 1.1 Billion Cycles per second!
The CPU has three sub parts that work together to do all the processing work. They are the
Central Memory, Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) and the Control Unit.

Figure-1: Basic Block Diagram of a Central Processing Unit (CPU)

How CPU’s work:
The CPU performs four steps in executing an instruction:

1. The control unit gets the instruction from memory.

2. The control unit decides what the instruction means and directs the necessary data to be
moved from the memory to the arithmetic logic unit.
3. The arithmetic logic unit performs the actual operation on the data.
4. The result of the operation is stored in memory or a register.

CPU Manufacturer’s:

Figure-2: AMD, Cyrix, Intel and Motorola

CPU Sockets:

Figure-3: Different Sockets for different pin configuration

Socket 1 169 Pins 5v 486 SX or DX

Socket 2 238 Pins 5v 486 SX DX or DX2
Socket 3 237 Pins 3v/5v 486 SX DX DX2 DX4
Socket 6 235 Pins 3v 486 DX

CPU Cooling Systems: As CPUs became faster with more transistors built into them, excessive
heat build-up do to electrical resistance became a factor in it’s performance.

Manufacturers began to design cooling systems that dissipated the heat away from the CPU.
Heat sinks and fans are two of the most common ways in which to dissipate excess heat.

Figure-3: CPU cooling fan and Cooling System

1.2 Motherboards:

The Main Printed Circuit Board Inside The PC That Contains and Controls The Components That
Are Responsible For Processing Data.

Figure-3: A Generic Picture of Mother board

Baby AT Motherboard:
A smaller motherboard (9x10") that superseded the one used in the original IBM AT (12x13.5").
The Baby AT motherboard has been widely used in 386, 486 and Pentium PCs.

ATX Motherboard:
It is a motherboard that superseded the widely-used Baby AT design. ATX rotates the CPU and
memory 90 degrees, allowing full-length boards in all sockets. The power supply blows air over
the CPU rather than pulling air through the chassis.

NLX Motherboard:
It is an Intel motherboard used for NetPCs and other low-profile (space-saving) systems.
Introduced in 1997, NLX supports the AGP and uses a riser card for expansion boards
1.3 Expansion Slots:

 A connector inside of your computer that a printed circuit board can be plugged into
that allows the addition of new or expanded capabilities to your computer.
 These connectors and the printed circuit boards plugged into them use buses or
channels on the circuit board to send and receive information from one component to
another component.
 A bus is a set of parallel conductors, which allow devices attached to it to communicate
with the CPU Central Processing Unit.
 A method of adding functionality to a computer so it does not need to be replaced each
time a new device or feature is added.

1.4 Power Supply:

 It converts household power into a form that the computer can use.
 Provides power to every device in the computer.
 The Power Supply converts AC (alternating current) which is external power to DC
(direct current) internal power that the computer can use.

Figure-8: A Generic Picture of Power Supply

Roles of power supply

• Stability – provides sufficient power to PC.

• Cooling - The power supply contains the main fan that controls the flow of air through
the PC case.
• Energy Efficiency - Newer PC power supplies work with components to reduce the
amount of power they consume when idle.
• Expandability - The capacity of your power supply is one factor that will determine your
ability to add new drives to your system
• A power supply is responsible for 28% of computer problems and is 2% of the computer
cost.

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card-sized single-board computer developed in the UK by the

Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of promoting the teaching of basic computer
science in schools.

The Raspberry Pi is manufactured through licensed manufacturing deals with Element

14/Premier Farnell, RS Components and Egoman. All of these companies sell the Raspberry Pi
online. Egoman produce a version that is only able to be distributed in China and Taiwan and
can be distinguished from other Pis as they are Red and do not have the FCC/CE marks. All of
the hardware is the same.

The Raspberry Pi has a Broadcom BCM2835 system on a chip (SoC), which includes an
ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz processor (The firmware includes a number of "Turbo" modes so that
the user can attempt overclocking, up to 1 GHz, without affecting the warranty), VideoCore IV
GPU, and was originally shipped with 256 megabytes of RAM, later upgraded to 512 MB. It does
not include a built-in hard disk or solid-state drive, but uses an SD card for booting and long-
term storage.
 Figure-9: Raspberry Pi computer module A

Simulation and Measurement

1. Observe and identify the different parts of Raspberry Pi computer system.

2. Install operating system and run the computer.
3. Study different parts of the computer by using corresponding power point slides.

References:

[1] M. MORRIS MANO, Computer System Architecture, 3rd edition

[2] Null and Lobur, Jones & Bartlett, Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture, 1st
edition
[3] website -http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi?ICID=hp-8Gbbundle-
ban