Basics of Computer Hardware

1
Basics of computer hardware
A computer is a programmable machine (or more precisely, a programmable

sequential state machine). There are two basic kinds of computers: analog and digital.
Analog computers are analog devices. That is, they have continuous states rather
than discrete numbered states. An analog computer can represent fractional or irrational
values exactly, with no round-off. Analog computers are almost never used outside of
experimental settings.
A digital computer is a programmable clocked sequential state machine. A digital

computer uses discrete states. A binary digital computer uses two discrete states, such as
positive/negative, high/low, on/off, used to represent the binary digits zero and one.
The French word ordinate, meaning that which puts things in order, is a good
description of the most common functionality of computers.
What are computers used for?
Computers are used for a wide variety of purposes.
Data processing is commercial and financial work. This includes such things as
billing, shipping and receiving, inventory control, and similar business related functions,
as well as the “electronic office”.
2
Scientific processing is using a computer to support science. This can be as simple as

gathering and analyzing raw data and as complex as modelling natural phenomenon
(weather and climate models, thermodynamics, nuclear engineering, etc.).
Multimedia includes content creation (composing music, performing music,

recording music, editing film and video, special effects, animation, illustration, laying out
print materials, etc.) and multimedia playback (games, DVDs, instructional materials,
etc.).
parts of a computer
The classic crude over implication of a computer is that it contains three elements:
processor unit, memory, and I/O (input/output). The borders between those three terms
are highly ambitious, non-contiguous, and erratically shifting.
A slightly less crude oversimplification divides a computer into five elements:

arithmetic and logic subsystem, control subsystem, main storage, input subsystem, and
output subsystem.
Processor
Arithmetic and logic
Control
Main storage
External storage
3
Input output overview
Input
output
processor
The processor is the part of the computer that actually does the computations. This is
sometimes called an MPU (for main processor unit) or CPU (for central processing unit
or central processor unit).
A processor typically contains an arithmetic/logic unit (ALU), control unit (including

processor flags, flag register, or status register), internal buses, and sometimes special
function units (the most common special function unit being a floating point unit for
floating point arithmetic).
Some computers have more than one processor. This is called multi-processing.
The major kinds of digital processors are: CISC, RISC, DSP, and hybrid.
CISC stands for Complex Instruction Set Computer. Mainframe computers and
minicomputers were CISC processors, with manufacturers competing to offer the most
useful instruction sets. Many of the first two generations of microprocessors were also
CISC.
RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer. RISC came about as a result of
academic research that showed that a small well designed instruction set running
compiled programs at high speed could perform more computing work than a CISC
running the same programs (although very expensive hand optimized assembly language
favored CISC).
DSP stands for Digital Signal Processing. DSP is used primarily in dedicated devices,
such as Modems, digital cameras, graphics cards, and other specialty devices.
Hybrid processors combine elements of two or three of the major classes of

processors.
Arithmetic and logic
An arithmetic/logic unit (ALU) performs integer arithmetic and logic operations. It

also performs shift and rotate operations and other specialized operations. Usually
floating point arithmetic is performed by a dedicated floating point unit (FPU), which
may be implemented as a co-processor.
4
An arithmetic/logic unit (ALU) performs integer arithmetic and logic operations. It

also performs shift and rotate operations and other specialized operations. Usually
floating point arithmetic is performed by a dedicated floating point unit (FPU), which
may be implemented as a co-processor.
Control
Control units are in charge of the computer. Control units fetch and decode machine
instructions. Control units may also control some external devices.
A bus is a set (group) of parallel lines that information (data, addresses, instructions,
and other information) travels on inside a computer. Information travels on buses as a
series of electrical pulses, each pulse representing a one bit or a zero bit (there are
ternary, or three-state, buses, but they are rare). An internal bus is a bus inside the
processor, moving data, addresses, instructions, and other information between registers
and other internal components or units. An external bus is a bus outside of the processor
(but inside the computer), moving data, addresses, and other information between major
components (including cards) inside the computer. Some common kinds of buses are the
system bus, a data bus, an address bus, a cache bus, a memory bus, and an I/O bus.
For more information, see buses.
Main storage
Main storage is also called memory or internal memory (to distinguish from external
memory, such as hard drives).
RAM is Random Access Memory, and is the basic kind of internal memory. RAM is
called “random access” because the processor or computer can access any location in
memory (as contrasted with sequential access devices, which must be accessed in order).
RAM has been made from reed relays, transistors, integrated circuits, magnetic core, or
anything that can hold and store binary values (one/zero, plus/minus, open/close,
positive/negative, high/low, etc.). Most modern RAM is made from integrated circuits. At
one time the most common kind of memory in mainframes was magnetic core, so many
older programmers will refer to main memory as core memory even when the RAM is
made from more modern technology. Static RAM is called static because it will continue
to hold and store information even when power is removed. Magnetic core and reed
relays are examples of static memory. Dynamic RAM is called dynamic because it loses
all data when power is removed. Transistors and integrated circuits are examples of
dynamic memory. It is possible to have battery back up for devices that are normally
dynamic to turn them into static memory.
ROM is Read Only Memory (it is also random access, but only for reads). ROM is
typically used to store things that will never change for the life of the computer, such as
low level portions of an operating system. Some processors (or variations within
processor families) might have RAM and/or ROM built into the same chip as the
5
processor (normally used for processors used in standalone devices, such as arcade video
games, ATMs, microwave ovens, car ignition systems, etc.). EPROM is Erasable
Programmable Read Only Memory, a special kind of ROM that can be erased and
reprogrammed with specialized equipment (but not by the processor it is connected to).
EPROM’s allow makers of industrial devices (and other similar equipment) to have the
benefits of ROM, yet also allow for updating or upgrading the software without having to
buy new ROM and throw out the old (the EPROM’s are collected, erased and rewritten
centrally, then placed back into the machines).
Registers and flags are a special kind of memory that exists inside a processor.
Typically a processor will have several internal registers that are much faster than main
memory. These registers usually have specialized capabilities for arithmetic, logic, and
other operations. Registers are usually fairly small (8, 16, 32, or 64 bits for integer data,
address, and control registers; 32, 64, 96, or 128 bits for floating point registers). Some
processors separate integer data and address registers, while other processors have
general purpose registers that can be used for both data and address purposes. A
processor will typically have one to 32 data or general purpose registers (processors with
separate data and address registers typically split the register set in half). Many
processors have special floating point registers (and some processors have general
purpose registers that can be used for either integer or floating point arithmetic). Flags are
single bit memory used for testing, comparison, and conditional operations (especially
conditional branching). For a much more advanced look at registers, see registers.
External storage
External storage (also called auxiliary storage) is any storage other than main
memory. In modern times this is mostly hard drives and removable media (such as floppy
disks, Zip disks, optical media, etc.). With the advent of USB and FireWire hard drives,
the line between permanent hard drives and removable media is blurred. Other kinds of
external storage include tape drives, drum drives, paper tape, and punched cards. Random
access or indexed access devices (such as hard drives, removable media, and drum
drives) provide an extension of memory (although usually accessed through logical file
systems). Sequential access devices (such as tape drives, paper tape punch/readers, or
dumb terminals) provide for off-line storage of large amounts of information (or back ups
of data) and are often called I/O devices (for input/output).
Input/output overview
Most external devices are capable of both input and output (I/O). Some devices are
inherently input-only (also called read-only) or inherently output-only (also called write-
only). Regardless of whether a device is I/O, read-only, or write-only, external devices
can be classified as block or character devices.
A character device is one that inputs or outputs data in a stream of characters, bytes,
or bits. Character devices can further be classified as serial or parallel. Examples of
character devices include printers, keyboards, and mice.
6
A serial device streams data as a series of bits, moving data one bit at a time.
Examples of serial devices include printers and Modems.
A parallel device streams data in a small group of bits simultaneously. Usually the
group is a single eight-bit byte (or possibly seven or nine bits, with the possibility of
various control or parity bits included in the data stream). Each group usually
corresponds to a single character of data. Rarely there will be a larger group of bits
(word, long word, double word, etc.). The most common parallel device is a printer
(although most modern printers have both a serial and a parallel connection, allowing
greater connection flexibility).
A block device moves large blocks of data at once. This may be physically
implemented as a serial or parallel stream of data, but the entire block gets transferred as
single packet of data. Most block devices are random access (that is, information can be
read or written from blocks anywhere on the device). Examples of random access block
devices include hard disks, floppy disks, and drum drives. Examples of sequential access
block devices include magnetic tape drives and high speed paper tape readers.
Input
Input devices are devices that bring information into a computer.
Pure input devices include such things as punched card readers, paper tape readers,
keyboards, mice, drawing tablets, touchpad’s, trackballs, and game controllers.
Devices that have an input component include magnetic tape drives, touch screens, and
dumb terminals.
Keyboards, Mouse, Panderers, joystick, card rider, Light pen, Scanner.
Output
Output devices are devices that bring information out of a computer.
Pure output devices include such things as card punches, paper tape punches, LED
displays (for light emitting diodes), monitors, printers, and pen plotters.
Devices that have an output component include magnetic tape drives, combination
paper tape reader/punches, teletypes, and dumb terminals.
Monitor, Printer, CD- Rom,
If you've ever taken the case off of a computer, you've seen the one piece of equipment
that ties everything together -- the motherboard. A motherboard allows all the parts of
your computer to receive power and communicate with one another.
7
Motherboards have come a long way in the last twenty years. The first
motherboards held very few actual components. The first IBM PC
motherboard had only a processor and card slots. Users plugged components
like floppy drive controllers and memory into the slots. Today,
motherboards typically boast a wide variety of built-in features, and they
directly affect a computer's capabilities and potential for upgrades.
In this article, we'll look at the general components of a motherboard. Then,

we'll closely examine five points that dramatically affect what a computer
can do.
ComputerHardwareImage
Motherboards tie everything in your computer together.
Form Factor
A motherboard by itself is useless, but a computer has to have one to
operate. The motherboard's main job is to hold the computer's
microprocessor chip and let everything else connect to it. Everything that
8
runs the computer or enhances its performance is either part of the

motherboard or plugs into it via a slot or port.
The shape and layout of a motherboard is called the form factor. The form
factor affects where individual components go and the shape of the
computer's case. There are several specific form factors that most PC
motherboards use so that they can all fit in standard cases.
The form factor is just one of the many standards that apply to
motherboards. Some of the other standards include:
• The socket for the microprocessor determines what kind of Central

processing unit (CPU) the motherboard uses.
• The chipset is part of the motherboard's logic system and is usually
made of two parts -- the north bridge and the south bridge. These two
"bridges" connect the CPU to other parts of the computer.
• The Basic Input-Output system (BIOS) chip controls the most basic
functions of the computer and performs a self-test every time you turn
it on. Some systems feature dual BIOS, which provides a backup in
case one fails or in case of error during updating.
• The real time clock chip is battery operated chips maintains basic
settings and the system time.
The slots and ports found on a motherboard include:

9
peripheral component Interconnect (PCI)- connections for video,

sound and video capture cards, as well as network cards
Accelerated Graphics port (AGP) -dedicated port for video cards.
• Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) - interfaces for the hard drives
• memory slots Universal Serial Bus or Fire wire external peripherals
•
• Some motherboards also incorporate newer technological advances:
• Redundant Array of Independent Discs (RAID) controllers allow the
computer to recognize multiple drives as one drive.
• PCI Express is a newer protocol that acts more like a network than a
bus. It can eliminate the need for other ports, including the AGP port.
• Rather than relying on plug-in cards, some motherboards have on-
board sound networking, video her peripheral support.
ket 754 motherboard
Many people think of the CPU as one of the most important parts of a
computer. We'll look at how it affects the rest of the computer
Sockets and CPUs
The CPU is the first thing that comes to mind when many people think about
a computer's speed and performance. The faster the processor, the faster the
computer can think. In the early days of PC computers, all processors had
10
the same set of pins that would connect the CPU to the motherboard, called
the Pin Grid Array (PGA). These pins fit into a socket layout called Socket
7. This meant that any processor would fit into any motherboard.
A Socket 939 motherboard
Today, however, CPU manufacturers Intel and AMD use a variety of PGAs,
none of which fit into Socket 7. As microprocessors advance, they need
more and more pins, both to handle new features and to provide more and
more power to the chip.
Current socket arrangements are often named for the number of pins in the
PGA. Commonly used sockets are:
• Socket 478 - for older Pentium and Celeron processors
• Socket 754 - for AMD Sempron and some AMD Athlon processors
• Socket 939 - for newer and faster AMD Athlon processors
11
A Socket LGA755 motherboard
•
• Socket AM2 - for the newest AMD Athlon processors
Socket A - for older AMD Athlon processors Chipsets
The chipset is the "glue" that connects the microprocessor to the rest of the
motherboard and therefore to the rest of the computer. On a PC, it consists
of two basic parts -- the north bridge and the south bridge. All of the
various components of the computer communicate with the CPU through the
chipset.
The newest Intel CPU does not have a PGA. It has an LGA, also known as
Socket T. LGA stands for Land Grid Array. An LGA is different from a
PGA in that the pins are actually part of the socket, not the CPU.
Anyone who already has a specific CPU in mind should select a
motherboard based on that CPU. For example, if you want to use one of the
new multi-core chips made by Intel or AMD, you will need to select a
motherboard with the correct socket for those chips. CPUs simply will not
fit into sockets that don't match their PGA.
The CPU communicates with other elements of the motherboard through a
chipset.
12
The north bridge and south bridge
The north bridge connects directly to the processor via the front side bus
(FSB). A memory controller is located on the north bridge, which gives the
CPU fast access to the memory. The north bridge also connects to the AGP
or PCI Express bus and to the memory itself.
The south bridge is slower than the north bridge, and information from the
CPU has to go through the north bridge before reaching the south bridge.
Other busses connect the south bridge to the PCI bus, the USB ports and the
IDE or SATA hard disk connections.
Chipset selection and CPU selection go hand in hand, because

manufacturers optimize chipsets to work with specific CPUs. The chipset is
an integrated part of the motherboard, so it cannot be removed or upgraded.
This means that not only must the motherboard's socket fit the CPU, the
motherboard's chipset must work optimally with the CPU.
Bus Speed
A bus is simply a circuit that connects one part of the motherboard to
another. The more data a bus can handle at one time, the faster it allows
13
information to travel. The speed of the bus, measured in megahertz (MHz),

refers to how much data can move across the bus simultaneously.
Busses connect different parts of the motherboard

to one another
Bus speed usually refers to the speed of the front side bus (FSB), which
connects the CPU to the north bridge. FSB speeds can range from 66 MHz
to over 800 MHz. Since the CPU reaches the memory controller though the
north bridge, FSB speed can dramatically affect a computer's performance.
Here are some of the other busses found on a motherboard:
• The back side bus connects the CPU with the level 2 (L2) cache, also
known as secondary or external cache. The processor determines the
speed of the back side bus.
• The memory bus connects the north bridge to the memory.
• The IDE or ATA bus connects the south bridge to the disk drives.
14
• The AGP bus connects the VIDEO CARD to the memory and the
CPU. The speed of the AGP bus is usually 66 MHz.
• The PCI bus connects PCI slots to the south bridge. On most systems,
the speed of the PCI bus is 33 MHz. Also compatible with PCI is PCI
Express, which is much faster than PCI but is still compatible with
current software and operating systems. PCI Express is likely to
replace both PCI and AGP busses.
The faster a computer's bus speed, the faster it will operate -- to a point. A
fast bus speed cannot make up for a slow processor or chipset.
Now let's look at memory and how it affects the motherboard's speed.
Memory and Other Features
We've established that the speed of the processor itself controls how quickly
a computer thinks. The speed of the chipset and busses controls how quickly
it can communicate with other parts of the computer. The speed of the RAM
connection directly controls how fast the computer can access instructions
and data, and therefore has a big effect on system performance. A fast
processor with slow RAM is going nowhere.
The amount of memory available also controls how much

data the computer can have readily available. RAM makes
up the bulk of a computer's memory. The general rule of
thumb is the more RAM the computer has, the better.
15
Much of the memory available today is dual data rate (DDR) memory.
This means that the memory can transmit data twice per cycle instead of
once, which makes the memory faster. Also, most motherboards have space
for multiple memory chips, and on newer motherboards, they often connect
to the north bridge via a dual bus instead of a single bus. This further
reduces the amount of time it takes for the processor to get information from
the memory.
200-pin DDR SODIMM RAM
A motherboard's memory slots directly affect what kind and how much
memory is supported. Just like other components, the memory plugs into the
slot via a series of pins. The memory module
must have the right number of pins to fit into the
slot on the motherboard.
In the earliest days of motherboards, virtually

everything other than the processor came on a
card that plugged into the board. Now,
motherboards feature a variety of onboard
accessories such as LAN support, video, sound
64MB SDRAM SIMM
support and RAID controllers.
Motherboards with all the bells and whistles are convenient and simple to
install. There are motherboards that have everything you need to create a
complete computer -- all you do is stick the motherboard in a case and add
hard disk, a CD Drive and a power supply. You have a completely
operational computer on a single board.
16
For many average users, these built-in features provide ample support for
video and sound. For avid gamers and people who do high-intensity graphic
or computer-aided design (CAD) work, however, separate Video-cards
provide much better performance.
For more information on motherboards and related topics, check out the
links on the following page.
BIOS Works
One of the most common uses of Flash memory is for the basic
input/output system of your computer, commonly known as the BIOS
(pronounced "bye-ose"). On virtually every computer available, the BIOS
makes sure all the other chips, hard drives, ports and CPU function together.
Every desktop and laptop computer in common use today contains a

microprocessor as its central processing unit. The microprocessor is the
hardware component. To get its work done, the microprocessor executes a
set of instructions known as software. You are probably very familiar with
two different types one of the most common uses of Flash memory is for the
basic input/output system of your computer, commonly known as the
BIOS (pronounced "bye-ose"). On virtually every computer available, the
BIOS makes sure all the other chips, hard drives, ports and CPU function
together.
Every desktop and Laptop computer in common use today contains a

microprocessor as its central processing unit. The microprocessor is the
hardware component. To get its work done, the microprocessor executes a
set of instructions known as software you are probably very familiar with
two different types of software:
17
• The operating system - The operating system provides a set of

services for the applications running on your computer, and it also
provides the fundamental user interface for your computer. Windows
98 and Linux are examples of operating systems.
• The applications - Applications are pieces of software that are
programmed to perform specific tasks. On your computer right now
you probably have a browser application, a word processing
application, an e-mail application and so on. You can also buy new
applications and install them.
Booting the Computer
Whenever you turn on your computer, the first thing you see is the BIOS
software doing its thing. On many machines, the BIOS displays text
describing things like the amount of memory installed in your computer, the
type of hard disk and so on. It turns out that, during this boot sequence, the
BIOS is doing a remarkable amount of work to get your computer ready to
run. This section briefly describes some of those activities for a typical PC.
After checking the CMOS Setup and loading the interrupt handlers, the
BIOS determine whether the video card is operational. Most video cards
have a miniature BIOS of their own that initializes the memory and graphics
processor on the card. If they do not, there is usually video driver
information on another ROM on the motherboard that the BIOS can load.
Next, the BIOS checks to see if this is a cold boot or a reboot. It does this
by checking the value at memory address 0000:0472. A value of 1234h
indicates a reboot, and the BIOS skips the rest of POST. Anything else is
considered a cold boot.
If it is a cold boot, the BIOS verifies RAM by performing a read/write test of

each memory address. It checks the PS/2 ports or USB ports for a keyboard
and a mouse. It looks for peripheral components interconnect (PCI) bus and,
if it finds one, checks all the PCI cards. If the BIOS finds any errors during
the POST, it will notify you by a series of beeps or a text message displayed
on the screen. An error at this point is almost always a hardware problem.
The BIOS then displays some details about your system. This typically
includes information about:
18
•
• The processor
• The floppy drive and hard drive
• memory
• BIOS revision and date
• Display
Any special drivers, such as the ones for small computer system interface
(SCSI) adapters, are loaded from the adapter, and the BIOS displays the
information. The BIOS then looks at the sequence of storage devices
identified as boot devices in the CMOS Setup. "Boot" is short for
"bootstrap," as in the old phrase, "Lift yourself up by your bootstraps." Boot
refers to the process of launching the operating system. The BIOS will try to
initiate the boot sequence from the first device. If the BIOS does not find a
device, it will try the next device in the list. If it does not find the proper
files on a device, the startup process will halt. If you have ever left a disk
when you restarted your computer, you have probably seen this message.
This i the message you receive if a disk is in the drive when you restart
your computer.
The BIOS has tried to boot the computer off of the disk left in the drive.
Since it did not find the correct system files, it could not continue. Of
course, this is an easy fix. Simply pop out the disk and press a key to
continue.
Configuring BIOS
In the previous list, you saw that the BIOS checks the CMOS Setup for
custom settings. Here's what you do to change those settings.
To enter the CMOS Setup, you must press a certain key or combination of
keys during the initial startup sequence. Most systems use "Esc," "Del,"
"F1," "F2," "Ctrl-Esc" or "Ctrl-Alt-Esc" to enter setup. There is usually a
19
line of text at the bottom of the display that tells you "Press ___ to Enter
Setup."
Once you have entered setup, you will see a set of text screens with a
number of options. Some of these are standard, while others vary according
to the BIOS manufacturer. Common options include:
• System Time/Date - Set the system time and date

• Boot Sequence - The order that BIOS will try to load the operating
system
• Plug and Play - A standard for auto-detecting connected devices;
should be set to "Yes" if your computer and operating system both
support it
• Mouse/Keyboard - "Enable Num Lock," "Enable the Keyboard,"
"Auto-Detect Mouse"...
• Drive Configuration - Configure hard drives, CD-ROM and floppy
drives
• Memory - Direct the BIOS to shadow to a specific memory address
• Security - Set a password for accessing the computer
• Power Management - Select whether to use power management, as
well as set the amount of time for standby and suspend
• Exit - Save your changes, discard your changes or restore default
settings
CMOS Setup
20
Be very careful when making changes to setup. Incorrect settings may keep
your computer from booting. When you are finished with your changes, you
should choose "Save Changes" and exit. The BIOS will then restart your
computer so that the new settings take effect.
The BIOS uses CMOS technology to save any changes made to the
computer's settings. With this technology, a small lithium or Ni-Cad battery
can supply enough power to keep the data for years. In fact, some of the
newer chips have a 10-year, tiny lithium battery built right into the CMOS
chip!
Updating Your BIOS
Occasionally, a computer will need to have its BIOS updated. This is

especially true of older machines. As new devices and standards arise, the
BIOS needs to change in order to understand the new hardware. Since the
BIOS is stored in some form of ROM, changing it is a bit harder than
upgrading most other types of software.
To change the BIOS itself, you'll probably need a special program from the
computer or BIOS manufacturer. Look at the BIOS revision and date
information displayed on system startup or check with your computer
manufacturer to find out what type of BIOS you have. Then go to the BIOS
manufacturer's Web site to see if an upgrade is available. Download the
upgrade and the utility program needed to install it. Sometimes the utility
and update are combined in a single file to download. Copy the program,
along with the BIOS update, onto a floppy disk. Restart your computer with
the floppy disk in the drive, and the program erases the old BIOS and writes
the new one. You can find a BIOS Wizard that will check your BIOS at
BIOS upgrades.
Major BIOS manufacturers include:
• American mega trends Inc.(AMI)

• Phoenix Technologies
• Ali
• Win bond
As with changes to the CMOS Setup, be careful when upgrading your BIOS.
Make sure you are upgrading to a version that is compatible with your
computer system. Otherwise, you could corrupt the BIOS, which means you
21
won't be able to boot your computer. If in doubt, check with your computer
manufacturer to be sure you need to upgrade.
Sound card
A sound card (also known as an audio card) is a computer expansion card that
facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of
computer programs. Typical uses of sound cards include providing the audio component
for multimedia applications such as music composition, editing video or audio,
presentation, education, and entertainment (games). Many computers have sound
capabilities built in, while others require additional expansion cards to provide for audio
capability.
General characteristics
Close-up of a sound card PCB, showing electrolytic capacitors, SMT capacitors and resistors, and a
YAC512two-channel 16-bit DAC
Sound cards usually feature a digital to analog converter (DAC), which converts recorded
or generated digital data into an analog format. The output signal is connected to an
amplifier, headphones, or external device using standard interconnects, such as a TRS
connector an RCA connector If the number and size of connectors is too large for the
space on the back plate the connectors will be off-board, typically using a breakout box,
or an auxiliary back plate. More advanced cards usually include more than one sound
chip to provide for higher data rates and multiple simultaneous functionality, eg between
digital sound production and synthesized sounds (usually for real-time generation of
music and sound effects using minimal data and CPU time). Digital sound reproduction is
usually done with multi-channel DAC’s, which are capable of multiple digital samples
simultaneously at different pitches and volumes, or optionally applying real-time effects
like filtering or distortion. Multi-channel digital sound playback can also be used for
music synthesis when used with a compliance, and even multiple-channel emulation.
This approach has become common as manufacturers seek to simplify the design and the
cost of sound cards.
22
Most sound cards have a line in connector for signal from a cassette tape recorder or
similar sound source. The sound card digitizes this signal and stores it (under control of
appropriate matching computer software) on the computer's hard disk for storage, editing,
or further processing. Another common external connector is the microphone connector,
for use by a microphone or other low level input device. Input through a microphone jack
can then be used by speech recognition software or for voice over IP applications.
Sound channels and polyphony
8-channel DAC cirrus Logic CS4382 placed on sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty.
An important characteristic of sound cards is polyphony, which is more than one distinct
voice or sound playable simultaneously and independently, and the number of
simultaneous channels. These are intended as the number of distinct electrical audio
outputs, which may correspond to a speaker configuration such as 2.0 (stereo), 2.1 (stereo
and sub woofer), 5.1 etc. Sometimes, the terms "voices" and "channels" are used
interchangeably to indicate the degree of polyphony, not the output speaker
configuration.
For example, many older sound chips could accommodate three voices, but only one
audio channel (i.e., a single mono output) for output, requiring all voices to be mixed
together. More recent cards, such as the AdLib sound card, have a 9 voice polyphony and
1 mono channel as a combined output.
For some years, most PC sound cards have had multiple FM synthesis voices (typically 9
or 16) which were usually used for MIDI music. The full capabilities of advanced cards
aren't often completely used; only one (mono) or two (stereo) voice(s) and channel(s) are
usually dedicated to playback of digital sound samples, and playing back more than one
digital sound sample usually requires a software downmix at a fixed sampling rate.
Modern low-cost integrated soundcards (i.e., those built into motherboards) such as audio
codecs like those meeting the AC’97 standard and even some budget expansion
soundcards still work that way. They may provide more than two sound output channels
(typically 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound), but they usually have no actual hardware
polyphony for either sound effects or MIDI reproduction, these tasks are performed
entirely in software. This is similar to the way inexpensive soft modems. Perform modem
tasks in software rather than in hardware).
23
Also, in the early days of Wavetable synthesis, some sound card manufacturers
advertised polyphony solely on the MIDI capabilities alone. In this case, the card's output
channel is irrelevant (and typically, the card is only capable of two channels of digital
sound). Instead, the polyphony measurement solely applies to the amount of MIDI
instruments the sound card is capable of producing at one given time.
Today, a sound card providing actual hardware polyphony, regardless of the number of
output channels, is typically referred to as a "hardware audio accelerator", although actual
voice polyphony is not the sole (or even a necessary) prerequisite, with other aspects such
as hardware acceleration of 3D sound, positional audio and real-time DSP effects being
more important.
Since digital sound playback has become available and provided better performance than
synthesis, modern soundcards with hardware polyphony don't actually use DACs with as
many channels as voices. Instead, they perform voice mixing and effects processing in
hardware (eventually performing digital filtering and conversions to and from the
frequency domain for applying certain effects) inside a dedicated DSP. The final
playback stage is performed by an external (in reference to the DSP chip(s)) DAC with
significantly fewer channels than voices (e.g., 8 channels for 7.1 audio, which can be
divided among 32, 64 or even 128 voices).
Colors codes
Connectors on the sound cards are colour coded as per the Pc System Design. They will
also have symbols with arrows, holes and sound waves that are associated with each jack
position, the meaning of each is given below:
Colour Function Connector Symbol
3.5 mm
Pink Analog microphone audio input.
TRS
A microphone
3.5 mm
Light blue Analog line level audio input.
TRS
An arrow going into a circle
Analog line level audio output for the main 3.5 mm Arrow going out one side of
Lime green stereo signal (front speakers or headphones). TRS a circle into a wave
Analog line level audio output for a special

Brown/Dark panning,'Right-to-left speaker'. 3.5 mm
24
Analog line level audio output for surround 3.5 mm

black speakers, typically rear stereo. TRS
Analog line level audio output for center 3.5 mm

Orange
channel speaker and subwoofer TRS
Arrow going out both sides

Gold/gray Game port/ MIDI 15 pin D
into waves
History of sound cards for the IBM PC architecture
The Adlib Music Synthesizer Card was one of the first sound cards circa 1990. Note the
manual volume adjustment knob.
A sound card based on VLA entry chip.
Echo digital audio corporation's Indigo IO — PCMCIA CARD 24-bit 96 kHz stereo in/out sound card.
Sound cards for computers compatible with the IBM PC were very uncommon until
1988, which left the single internal PC speaker as the only way early PC software could
produce sound and music. The speaker hardware was typically limited to square waves,
25
which fit the common nickname of "beeper". The resulting sound was generally
described as "beeps and boops". Several companies, most notably Access software,
developed techniques for digital sound reproduction over the PC speaker; the resulting
audio, while baldly functional, suffered from distorted output and low volume, and
usually required all other processing to be stopped while sounds were played. Other home
computer models of the 1980s included hardware support for digital sound playback, or
music synthesis (or both), leaving the IBM PC at a disadvantage to them when it came to
multimedia applications such as music composition or gaming.
It is important to note that the initial design and marketing focuses of sound cards for the
IBM PC platform were not based on gaming, but rather on specific audio applications
such as music composition (Adlib personal music system, creative Music System, IBM
Music Feature Card) or on speech synthesis (Digispeech DS201, Covox Speech Thing, ,
Street Electronics Echo). Only until Sierra and other game companies became involved in
1988 was there a switch toward gaming.
Hardware manufacturers
One of the first manufacturers of sound cards for the IBM PC was Adlib, who produced a
card based on the Yamaha sound chip, akin the OPL2. The AdLib had two modes: A 9-
voice mode where each voice could be fully programmed and a less frequently used
"percussion" mode with 3 regular voices producing 5 independent percussion-only voices
for a total of 11. (The percussion mode was considered inflexible by most developers; it
was used mostly by Ad-Lib’s own composition software.)
Creative lab also marketed a sound card about the same time called the creative system
Although the C/MS had twelve voices to Ad-Lib’s nine, and was a stereo card while the
AdLib was mono, the basic technology behind it was based on the Philips SAA 1099
sensually a square-wave generator. It sounded much like twelve simultaneous PC
speakers would have, and failed to sell well, even after Creative renamed it the Game
Blaster a year later, and marketed it through Radio Shack in the US. The Game Blaster
retailed for under $100 and included the hit game slipped
A large change in the IBM PC compatible sound card market happened with creative lab
he sound Bills found Blaster cloned the AdLib, and added a sound coprocessor for
recording and play back of digital audio (likely to have been an Intel controller relabeled
by Creative). It was incorrectly called a "DSP" (to suggest it was a digital signal
processor joy stick) to interface to MIDI equipment (using the game port and a special
cable). With more features at nearly the same price, and compatibility as well, most
buyers chose the Sound Blaster. It eventually outsold the AdLib and dominated the
market.
The Sound Blaster line of cards, together with the first inexpensive CD-ROM drives and
evolving video technology, ushered in a new era of multimedia computer applications
that could play back CD audio, add recorded dialogue to computer games, or even
reproduce motion video (albeit at much lower resolutions and quality in early days). The
26
widespread decision to support the Sound Blaster design in multimedia and entertainment
titles meant that future sound cards such as Media Vision's Pro Audio Spectrum and the
Gravis Ultrasound had to be Sound Blaster compatible if they were to sell well. Until the
early 2000s (by which the AC'97 audio standard became more widespread and eventually
usurped the SoundBlaster as a standard due to its low cost and integration into many
motherboards), Sound Blaster compatibility is a standard that many other sound cards
still support to maintain compatibility with many games and applications released.
[edit] Industry adoption
When game company Sierra On-Line opted to support add-on music hardware (instead of
built-in hardware such as the PC speaker and built-in sound capabilities of the IBM PCjr
and Tandy 1000), what could be done with sound and music on the IBM PC changed
dramatically. Two of the companies Sierra partnered with were Roland and Adlib, opting
to produce in-game music for King's Quest 4 that supported the Roland MT-32 and Adlib
Music Synthesizer. The MT-32 had superior output quality, due in part to its method of
sound synthesis as well as built-in reverb. Since it was the most sophisticated synthesizer
they supported, Sierra chose to use most of the MT-32's custom features and
unconventional instrument patches, producing background sound effects (eg, chirping
birds, clopping horse hooves, etc.) before the Sound Blaster brought playing real audio
clips to the PC entertainment world. Many game companies also supported the MT-32,
but supported the Adlib card as an alternative because of the latter's higher market base.
The adoption of the MT-32 led the way for the creation of the MPU-401/Roland Sound
Canvas and General MIDI standards as the most common means of playing in-game
music until the mid-1990s.
[edit] Feature evolution
Early ISA bus soundcards were half-duplex, meaning they could not record and play
digitized sound simultaneously, mostly due to inferior card hardware (eg, DSPs). Later,
ISA cards like the SoundBlaster AWE series and Plug-and-play SoundBlaster clones
eventually became full-duplex and supported simultaneous recording and playback, but at
the expense of using up two IRQ and DMA channels instead of one, making them no
different from having two half-duplex sound cards in terms of configuration. Towards the
end of the ISA bus' life, ISA soundcards started taking advantage of IRQ sharing, thus
reducing the IRQs needed to one, but still needed two DMA channels. Many PCI bus
cards do not have these limitations and are mostly full-duplex. It should also be noted that
many modern PCI bus cards also do not require free DMA channels to operate.
Also, throughout the years, soundcards have evolved in terms of digital audio sampling
rate (starting from 8-bit 11.025 kHz, to 32-bit, 192 kHz that the latest solutions support).
Along the way, some cards started offering Wavetable synthesis, which provides superior
MIDI synthesis quality in relative to the earlier OPL-based solutions, which uses FM-
synthesis. Also, some higher end cards started having its own RAM and processor for
user-definable sound samples and MIDI instruments as well as to offload audio
processing from the CPU.
27
For years, soundcards had only one or two channels of digital sound (most notably the
Sound Blaster series and their compatibles) with the exception of the Gravis Ultrasound
family, which had hardware support for up to 32 independent channels of digital audio.
Early games and MOD-players needing more channels than a card could support had to
resort to mixing multiple channels in software. Even today, the tendency is still to mix
multiple sound streams in software, except in products specifically intended for gamers
or professional musicians, with a sensible difference in price from "software based"
products. Also, in the early era of wave table synthesis, soundcard companies would also
sometimes boast about the card's polyphony capabilities in terms of MIDI synthesis. In
this case polyphony solely refers to the amount of MIDI notes the card is capable of
synthesizing simultaneously at one given time and not the amount of digital audio
streams the card is capable of handling.
In regards to physical sound output, the number of physical sound channels has also
increased. The first soundcard solutions were mono. Stereo sound was introduced in the
early 90s, and quadraphonic sound came in the late 90s. This was shortly followed by 5.1
channel audio. The latest soundcards support up to 8 physical audio channels in the 7.1
speaker setup.
[edit] Professional soundcards (audio interfaces)
An M-Audio professional sound card with its breakout cables.
Professional soundcards are special soundcards optimized for real time (or at least low
latency) multichannel sound recording and playback, including studio-grade fidelity.
Their drivers usually follow the Audio Stream Input Output protocol for use with
professional sound engineering and music software, although ASIO drivers are also
available for a range of consumer-grade soundcards.
Professional soundcards are usually described as "audio interfaces", and sometimes have
the form of external rack-mountable units using USB 2.0, Firewire, or an optical
interface, to offer sufficient data rates. The emphasis in these products is, in general, on
multiple input and output connectors, direct hardware support for multiple input and
output sound channels, as well as higher sampling rates and fidelity as compared to the
usual consumer soundcard. In that respect, their role and intended purpose is more similar
to a specialized multi-channel data recorder and real-time audio mixer and processor,
roles which are possible only to a limited degree with typical consumer soundcards.
28
On the other hand, certain features of consumer soundcards such as support for
Environmental audio extensions, optimization for hardware acceleration in video games,
or real-time ambience effects are secondary, nonexistent or even undesirable in
professional soundcards, and as such audio interfaces are not recommended for the
typical home user.
The typical "consumer-grade" soundcard is intended for generic home, office, and
entertainment purposes with an emphasis on playback and casual use, rather than catering
to the needs of audio professionals. In response to this, Steinberg (the creators of audio
recording and sequencing software, Cubase and Nuendo) developed a protocol that
specified the handling of multiple audio inputs and outputs.
In general, consumer grade soundcards impose several restrictions and inconvenieces that
would be unacceptable to an audio professional. One of a modern soundcard's purposes is
to provide an AD/DA converter (Analog to Digital/Digital to Analog). However, in
professional applications, there is usually a need for enhanced recording (analog to
digital) conversion capabilities.
One of the limitations of consumer soundcards is their comparatively large sampling

latency; this is the time it takes for the AD Converter to complete conversion of a sound
sample and transfer it to the computer's main memory.
Consumer soundcards are also limited in the effective sampling rates and bit depths they
can actually manage (compare Analog sound vs. digital sound) and have lower numbers
of less flexible input channels: professional studio recording use typically requires more
than two channels which consumer soundcards provide, and more accessible connectors,
unlike the variable mixture of internal -- and sometimes virtual -- and external connectors
found in consumer-grade soundcards.
[edit] Sound devices other than expansion cards

[edit] Integrated sound hardware on PC motherboards
In 1984, the first IBM PCjr had only a rudimentary 3-voice sound synthesis chip (the
SN76489) which was capable of generating three square-wave tones with variable
amplitude, and a pseudo white noise channel that could generate primitive percussion
sounds. The Tandy 1000, initially a clone of the PCjr, duplicated this functionality, with
the Tandy TL/SL/RL models adding digital sound recording/playback capabilities.
In the late 1990s, many computer manufacturers began to replace plug-in soundcards
with a "codec" chip (actually a combined audio AD/DA-converter) integrated into the
motherboard. Many of these used Intel's AC97 specification. Others used inexpensive
ACR slot accessory cards.
As of 2005, these "codecs" usually lack the hardware for direct music synthesis or even
multi-channel sound, with special drivers and software making up for these lacks, at the
29
expense of CPU speed (for example, MIDI reproduction takes away 10-15% CPU time
on an Athlon XP 1600+ CPU).
Nevertheless, some manufacturers offered (and offer, as of 2006) motherboards with

integrated "real" (non-codec) soundcards, usually in the form of a custom chipset
providing something akin to full ISA or PCI Soundblaster compatibility; this saves an
expansion slot while providing the user with a (relatively) high quality soundcard.
[edit] Integrated sound on other platforms
Various non-IBM PC compatible computers, such as early home computers like the
Commodore C64 and Amiga or Apple's Macintosh, and workstations from manufacturers
like Sun have had their own motherboard integrated sound devices. In some cases, most
notably in those of the Commodore Amiga and the C64, they provide very advanced
capabilities (as of the time of manufacture), in others they are only minimal capabilities.
Some of these platforms have also had sound cards designed for their bus architectures
that cannot be used in a standard PC.
The custom sound chip on Amiga, named Paula, had four digital sound channels (2 for
the left speaker and 2 for the right) with 8 bit resolution (although with patches, 14/15bit
was accomplishable at the cost of high CPU usage) for each channel and a 6 bit volume
control per channel. Sound Play back on Amiga was done by reading directly from the
chip-RAM without using the main CPU.
[edit] Sound cards on other platforms
The earliest known soundcard used by computers was the Gooch Synthetic Woodwind, A
music device for PLATO terminals, and is widely hailed as the precursor to sound cards
and MIDI. It was invented in 1972.
While many of Apple's machines come with on-board sound capabilities, their bestselling
Apple II series suffered from a lack of more than minimal sound devices, all but the last
model containing only a beeper that was even more limited than the one in the PC. To get
around the problem, the Sweet Micro Systems company developed the Mockingboard (a
name-play on mockingbird), which was essentially a sound card for the Apple II. Early
Mockingboard models ranged from 3 voices in mono, while some later designs were 6
voices in stereo. Some software supported use of two Mockingboard cards which allowed
12 voice music and sound. A 12 voice, single card clone of the Mockingboard called the
Phasor was also made by Applied Engineering. In late 2005 a company called
ReactiveMicro.com produced a 6 voice clone called the Mockingboard v1 and also has
plans to clone the Phasor and produce a hybrid card which will be user selectable
between Mockingboard and Phasor modes plus support both the SC-01 or SC-02 speech
synthesizers.
MSX computers also relied on sound cards to produce better quality audio. The card,
known moon sound Mahan OPL4 sound chip. Prior to the Moon sound, there were also
30
soundcards called MSX Music and MSX Audio, which uses OPL2 and OPL3 chipsets, for
the system.
[edit] USB sound "cards"
USB sound "cards" are actually external boxes that plug into the computer via USB.
Contrary to the name, most of these boxes make no sound at all. The sound is produced
in software within the PC. These boxes only provide for connectivity from the pc via the
usb bus to an external device such as a microphone in or line in/out connector. They are
more accurately called audio interfaces rather than sound cards.
The USB specification defines a standard interface, the USB audio device class, allowing
a single driver to work with the various USB sound devices on the market. Cards meeting
the USB 2.0 specification have sufficient data transfer capacity to support high quality
sound operation if their circuit design permits.
[edit] Other outboard sound devices
USB Sound Cards are far from the first external devices allowing a computer to record or
synthesize sound. For example, devices such as the Covox Speech Thing were attached to
the parallel port of an IBM PC and fed 6- or 8-bit PCM sample data to produce audio.
Also, many types of professional soundcards (audio interfaces) have the form of an
external Firewire or USB unit, usually for convenience and improved fidelity.
Soundcards using the PCMCIA cardbus interface were popular in the early days of
portable computing when laptops and notebooks did not have onboard sound. Even
today, while rare, these cardbus audio solutions are still used in some setups in which the
onboard sound solution of the notebook or laptop is not up to par with the owners'
expectations or requirements, and are particularly targeted at mobile DJs, with units
providing separated outputs usually allow both playback and monitoring from one
system.
[edit] Driver architecture
To use a sound card, the operating system typically requires a specific device driver. This
is a low-level program that handles the data connections between the physical hardware
and the operating system. Some operating systems include the drivers for some or all
cards available, in other cases the drivers are supplied with the card itself, or are available
for download.
• DOS programs for the IBM PC often had to use universal middleware driver libraries (such as the
HMI Sound Operating System, the Miles Audio Interface Libraries (AIL), the Miles Sound
System etc.) which had drivers for most common sound cards, since DOS itself had no real
concept of a sound card. Some card manufacturers provided (sometimes inefficient) middleware
TSR-based drivers for their products. Often the driver is a SoundBlaster emulator designed to
allow their products to emulate a SoundBlaster and to allow games that could only use
31
SoundBlaster sound to work with the card. finally, some programs simply had driver/middleware
source code incorporated into the program itself for the sound cards that were supported.
• Microsoft Windows uses proprietary drivers generally written by the sound card manufacturers.
Many device manufacturers supply the drivers on their own discs or to Microsoft for inclusion on
Windows installation disc. Sometimes drivers are also supplied by the individual vendors for
download and installation. Bug fixes and other improvements are likely to be available faster via
downloading, since CDs cannot be updated as frequently as a web or FTP site. USB audio device
class support is present from Windows 98 SE onwards. [1] Since Microsoft's Universal Audio
Architecture (UAA) initiative which supports the HD Audio, FireWire and USB audio device
class standards, a universal class driver by Microsoft can be used. The driver is included with
Windows Vista. For Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003, the driver can be
obtained by contacting Microsoft support. [2] Almost all manufacturer-supplied drivers for such
devices also include this class driver.
• A number of versions of UNIX make use of the portable Open Sound System (OSS). Drivers are
seldom produced by the card manufacturer.
o Most present day Linux-based distributions make use of the Advanced Linux Sound
Architecture (ALSA). Up until Linux kernel 2.4, OSS was the standard sound
architecture for Linux, although ALSA can be downloaded, compiled and installed
separately for kernels 2.2 or higher). But from kernel 2.5 onwards, ALSA was integrated
into the kernel and the OSS native drivers were deprecated. Backwards compatibility
with OSS-based software is maintained, however, by the use of the ALSA-OSS
compatibility API and the OSS-emulation kernel modules.
• Mockingboard support on the Apple II is usually incorporated into the programs itself as many
programs for the Apple II boot directly from disk.
What is a switching-mode power supply?
A power supply is a buffer circuit that provides power with the characteristics required
by the load from a primary power source with characteristics incompatible with the load.
It makes the load compatible with its power source.
Example: A power source might be the 60 Hz, single phase, 120 V ac power found
in a home in the United States or the 50 Hz, single phase, 220 V ac found in the
United Kingdom. The load might be a logic circuit in a personal computer that
requires regulated 5 V dc power. The power supply is the circuit that makes the 120
V ac or 220 V ac power source and 5 V dc load compatible.
A power supply is sometimes called a power converter and the process is called power
conversion. It is also sometimes called a power conditioner and the process is called
power conditioning. The Power Sources Manufacturers Association's (PSMA) Handbook
of Standardized Terminology for the Power Sources Industry gives this definition of a
power supply.
Power Supply -- A device for the conversion of available power of one set of
characteristics to another set of characteristics to meet specified requirements. Typical
application of power supplies include to convert raw input power to a controlled or
stabilized voltage and/or current for the operation of electronic equipment.
32
Power supplies belong to the field of power electronics, the use of electronics for the
control and conversion of electrical power. The IEEE Power Electronics Society provides
a more formal definition of power electronics in their constitution.
Power Electronics -- This technology encompasses the effective use of electronic

components, the application of circuit theory and design techniques, and the development
of analytical tools toward efficient electronic conversion, control, and conditioning of
electric power.
A switching-mode power supply is a power supply that provides the power supply
function through low loss components such as capacitors, inductors, and transformers --
and the use of switches that are in one of two states, on or off. The advantage is that the
switch dissipates very little power in either of these two states and power conversion can
be accomplished with minimal power loss, which equates to high efficiency. The term
switchmode was widely used for this type of power supply until Motorola, Inc., who used
the trademark SWITCHMODE TM for products aimed at the switching-mode power
supply market, started to enforce their trademark. Then more generic terms had to be
found. I started using the term switching-mode power supply to avoid infringing on the
trademark. Others used the term switching power supply, which seems to be the more
popular term. PSMA does not define either switching-mode power supply or switching
power supply, but does define switching regulator.
Switch Mode Power Supply (SMPS)

Switch mode power supplies(SMPS) are an extraordinary array of high frequency alternative. These are the Switching
Regulators offers higher efficiency then liner regulators. In addition the Power Supply SMPS can step-up, down and invert the
input voltage.
Working principal of Switch Mode Power Supply

A switching regulator is a circuit that uses an inductor, a tranformer, and a capacitor as energy-storage element to tranfer
energy from input to output in discrete packets. Feedback circuitry regulates the energy tranfer to maintain a canstant voltage
within the load limits of the circuit.
They use some form of pulse-width modulation to alter the on time relative to the off time to effect control. The device used in
this to giveen the constraints of frequency and the speed are power ?fets?
The use of power ?fets? with fast turn-on and turn-off characteristics have made switches that operate comfortable at
frequency above 100khz practical.
There are two topologies are used
• Forward converters
• Flyback circuits.
Forward converters are used in medium and high power applications. They can be recognizeed by their power transformer and
output choke.
Flybacks are favored for low power applications because they employ a transformer that doubles as the input choke
Using a transformer as the energy-storage element also allows output voltage to be electrically isolated from the input voltage.
33
IPS-01
Available Specifications
5 VCD/5 Amp.,Input 140-260 VAC

+/-5 VCD/1 Amp.,Input 140-260 VAC
12 VCD/1Amp.,Input 140-260 VAC
+/-18 VDC/1 Amp.,Input 140-260 VAC
24 VDC/1 Amp.,Input 140-260 VAC
12 VDC/1 Amp.,With 12 VDC Battery Charger
(And many more combination available with battery

charger,+ve and -ve combination and any other
combination is required will be supply)
Connection Diagram
Request a Quote
Connecting IDE Hard Drives
You Would Think It Was Simple, But...
When connecting IDE devices in your computer, there are a few rules you need to know about.
First, Master and Slave devices are different for the 80-wire cables and the 40-wire cables.
Second, if you don't know for sure, RTDM... (read the damn manual).
Inside your computer, you generally have two (2) IDE hard drive controller connections. They look this
this 99% of the time:
34
[ The smaller one on the very top is a floppy drive controller connection ]
There is a Primary & Secondary connection located here. The Primary connection ALWAYS gets the 80-
wire cable. Most of the time, but not always, you connect the 40-wire cable on the other Secondary
connection. This is normally where you connect your lesser used devices like CDROMs, CDROM Burners
and Tape Drives. You can connect other hard drives here with your CDROM or slower device, but there
are issues that I'll go into later.
Pictured here are the two cables, the 80-wire and the older 40-wire ATA IDE cables. As you can see, the
one on the left, the newer 80-wire cable has very small wires running from connector to connector,
conversely, the 40-wire cable has larger wires. There is a reason for this. The newer standard requires the
addition and separation of the wires for better signals to achieve the faster speeds.
The older Master & Slave relationship
For the longest time, hard drives have always had a setting for a Master or Primary setting and Slave. The
Master was always the boot drive, the drive that contained the operating system. The other drive or Slave
drive was for data storage. In rare cases, using this configuration you could boot from a Slave device but
I'm not gonna get into that here and now. The way technicians have always done it in the past with the 40-
35
wire cable was Master in the Middle connection and Slave on the end. It really didn't matter much until the
hard drive makers started making drives with the Cable Select option.
Okay, lets set the record straight. The 80-wire cables are not called 80-pins! Burn this in to
your brain kids. The older 40-wire and the newer 80 wire are both 40-pins! Well, actually,
their 39 pins. One pin was removed that was never used so people installing hard drives
wouldn't connect them backwards. If you scroll up and look at the motherboard connector
at the beginning of this article, you'll see the 19th pin removed so that these cables can't be
connected the wrong way. See the picture below...
Connecting Your Hard Drives
40 Wire Cables
On the slower older 40-wire ATA cables, the Master device, usually a CD-ROM or CD-ROM
recorder/burner still goes on the END, but you need to set the jumpers as Slave. Did you ever buy a new
CDROM or CDROM burner, open up the package and see that the jumper was already on the Slave
position? It's that way for a reason. This is true even if you don't have a hard drive in the Master position.
The Master for 40-wire cables goes on the the Middle connector. Only older computers (the AT type) have
a problem here, and again, you should read the manual that came with the motherboard or contact the
maker of the system. You could try it as a Master and it may work but that's not the way it should be. If you
want to use the cable select with the older drive on a 40-wire cable, you'll have to consult the maker of the
drive for the instructions. My sources tell me that there was a loose standard to put the Master drive on the
end of the 40-wire cable and the Slave in the middle but that was a very loose standard. Makers I spoke to
(IBM, Maxtor, etc.) informed me that the user should set the drive using the Master and Slave jumpers on
the hard drive, placing the Master in the middle and the Slave on the end. Dats Dat.
80-wire Cables
On the ATA66/100/133 standard 80-wire cable, the Master hard drive or your boot hard drive goes on the
END of the cable. This is true whether or not you use the Master/Slave style or the Cable Select style.
36
Frequently Asked Questions:
Can I connect a older ATA33 drive with my newer ATA66/100/133 drive?

Yes. But, you'll suffer a dramatic speed hit. Because of the slower drives controller, the PC will
accommodate both drives by slowing down the pair to the older drives speed. Put your older drive on the
Secondary channel with your CDROM as the Master.
What position should I connect my CDROM Burner if I want to put it on the 40-wire cable?
It should be the Master, and the hard drive (if you have one) Slave.
Can I put my brand new CDROM Burner on the Slave position on my 80-wire cable?
I wouldn't. That would slow down the hard drive.
Why does my motherboard detect my ATA100 hard drive as a ATA33 or DMA mode 2?
Some hard drives need to have a special driver that was supplied by the manufacturer to turn-on the
ATA66, 100 or 133 feature.
Notes:
The standard 40-wire ATA ribbon cable and the 80-wire cable give different drive behavior when using
Cable Select. If using the standard 40-wire cable, the Master goes in the middle connector and the Slave
goes in the end connector. If using the 80-wire cable, attach the blue end connector to the system board or
host controller, the gray middle connector to the Slave, and the black end connector to the Master.
All newer IDE/EIDE hard drives can be jumpered as Cable Select (CS or CSEL). This is an alternate way
to indicate which drive is master and which drive is slave (instead of jumpering one drive as master and one
drive as slave). Cable Select jumpering requires a special IDE cable with wire 28 not connected to one of
the drive connectors, which would configure the drive attached to that connector as the slave drive.
Cable Select jumpering is not widely used now, but may become more common as things move more
towards Plug and Play, as this is part of the ATA PnP standard and Microsoft's PC97 standard. The idea is
that drives can be installed easily without having to change jumpers on two drives anytime a drive is
installed or removed. Cable Select is defined in the ATA-2 and ATA-3 specifications.
In order to use Cable Select jumpering, several conditions must be met. Both drives on a channel must
support CSEL, both drives must be jumpered as CSEL, a CSEL cable must be used, and the host interface
connector must support CSEL. For the host interface to support Cable Select, wire 28 must be grounded.
37
Although the Cable Select specification may simplify things in the future, there will probably be lots of
confusion, especially on legacy systems, as this starts to be introduced. One problem will be in selecting the
correct cable. Supposedly, the cables used for Cable Select will be clearly marked, with each connector
labeled as Device 0 (or Master) or Device 1 (or Slave). If not clearly marked, it may not be easy to identify
a CSEL cable visually. wire 28 can be checked for continuity.
A Cable Select cable can be constructed in various ways. Pin 28 may be non connected to the connector at
the end of the cable or to the connector in the middle of the cable. Another design would have the host
interface connector in the middle and the two drives would plug into each end of the cable, with the
connector at one of the ends not connected to pin 28.
If both drives are set for CSEL and the host interface supports CSEL, but a regular cable is used, both
drives will be seen as master.
A Cable Select cable can be used with master/slave drive jumpering.
Another problem will be with host interfaces on legacy motherboards and controller cards. If pin 28 is not
grounded on the host interface, drives connected to either connector on the CSEL cable will be seen as
slave. It will be common to find that pin 28 is open or high on many older IDE interfaces. This can be
checked with a voltmeter.
Installing the 80-Conductor IDE Cable

The 40-pin 80-conductor cable is orientation specific. The cable connectors are color-coded: blue for the
host connector, black and gray for the primary and secondary disk drives. The blue connector should be
installed into the Primary IDE connector.
All Ultra ATA/66 devices should be attached to a single channel and devices that do not support Ultra
ATA/66 should be connected to a separate channel. In single drive configurations, connect the primary
drive to the end connector on the 40-pin 80-conductor cable.
From the horses mouth
Here are some quotes from leading websites about connecting IDE devices:
Intel - Installing the 80-Conductor IDE Cable

The 40-pin 80-conductor cable is orientation specific. The cable connectors are color-coded: blue for the
host connector, black and gray for the primary and secondary disk drives. The blue connector should be
installed into the Primary IDE connector.
All Ultra ATA/66 devices should be attached to a single channel and devices that do not support Ultra
ATA/66 should be connected to a separate channel. In single drive configurations, connect the primary
drive to the end connector on the 40-pin 80-conductor cable.
Types of Hard Drive Cables

This article will help to identify internal hard drive data cables. There are three main
types of cables: IDE/PATA, SATA and SCSI.
38
Significance
1. There are several types of hard drives, and they all require different data cables. To connect a hard
drive to a computer, one must have the proper cables and plug the cables into the appropriate places.
Background
2. There are three main types of hard drive data cables: IDE/PATA, SATA and SCSI.
IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) drives, also known as PATA (Parallel AT Attachment) drives, are
commonly found in personal computers. However, manufacturers rarely install IDE/PATA drives in
new personal computers as of early 2009: These drives usually are found only in older computers. The
IDE/PATA technology was designed in 1986 and has mostly been superseded by the SATA
technology in new personal computers.
SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drives are also commonly found in personal
computers; its technology was developed in 2003.
SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) drives usually are found only in high-end server/mainframe
computers. Although the SCSI technology has existed since 1981, it has been revised numerous times
since then; SCSI drives are still used today.
IDE/PATA Cable
3.
IDE/PATA data cable.
An IDE/PATA hard drive cable is a ribbon cable containing 40 pins. Either one or two devices may be
connected to an IDE/PATA cable, and the devices need not be of the same type. For example, an
IDE/PATA DVD-R drive may be connected along with an IDE/PATA hard drive on the same cable.
SATA Cable
4.
SATA data cable.
A SATA hard drive cable has seven conductors and is smaller than an IDE/PATA cable. A SATA
cable connects a single hard drive to a single connector on the SATA controller, which is usually
found on the computer's motherboard.
39
SCSI Cable
5.
SCSI 50-pin cable - by Smial on Wikimedia, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 Germany.
SCSI cables look similar to IDE/PATA cables in that both drives use ribbon cables. However, SCSI
cables have more pins than IDE cables. Depending on the SCSI interface, a SCSI cable may have 50
or 68 pins (IDE/PATA drives have 40). Like IDE, multiple SCSI devices can be connected to a single
channel through "daisy chaining." Depending on the SCSI interface, as many as 7 or 15 devices may
be connected to a single SCSI channel.
Hard disk drive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"Hard drive" redirects here. For other uses, see Hard drive (disambiguation).
Hard disk drive
A hard disk drive with the metal cover removed.
Date invented December 14, 1954[1]
Invented by An IBM team led by Rey Johnson
Connects to Host adapter of system, in PCs typically

integrated into motherboard. via one of:
• PATA (IDE) interface

• SATA interface
• SAS interface
• SCSI interface (popular on servers)
40
• FC interface (almost exclusively

found on servers)
• USB interface
Market Desktop computers

Segments Mobile computing
Enterprise computing
Consumer electronic
A hard disk drive[2] (often shortened as hard disk[3], hard drive[4], or HDD) is a non-
volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with
magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to the motorized mechanical aspect
that is distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk drive
and its floppy disk. Early HDDs had removable media; however, an HDD today is
typically a sealed unit (except for a filtered vent hole to equalize air pressure) with fixed
media.[5][6]
41
Contents
• 1 History
• 2 Technology
o 2.1 Error handling
o 2.2 Architecture
• 3 Capacity and access speed
o 3.1 Capacity measurements
 3.1.1 Formatted disk overhead
• 4 Form factors
• 5 Other characteristics
o 5.1 Data transfer rate
o 5.2 Seek time
o 5.3 Power consumption
o 5.4 Audible noise
o 5.5 Shock resistance
• 6 Access and interfaces
o 6.1 Disk interface families used in personal computers
• 7 Integrity
o 7.1 Actuation of moving arm
o 7.2 Landing zones and load/unload technology
o 7.3 Disk failures and their metrics
• 8 Manufacturers
• 9 Sales
• 10 See also
• 11 References
• 12 External links
[edit] History
Main article: History of hard disk drives
HDDs (introduced in 1956 as data storage for an IBM accounting computer[7]) were
originally developed for use with general purpose computers. During the 1990s, the need
for large-scale, reliable storage, independent of a particular device, led to the introduction
of embedded systems such as RAIDs, network attached storage (NAS) systems, and
storage area network (SAN) systems that provide efficient and reliable access to large
volumes of data. In the 21st century, HDD usage expanded into consumer applications
such as camcorders, cellphones (e.g. the Nokia N91), digital audio players, digital video
players, digital video recorders, personal digital assistants and video game consoles.
42
[edit] Technology
HDDs record data by magnetizing ferromagnetic material directionally, to represent

either a 0 or a 1 binary digit. They read the data back by detecting the magnetization of
the material. A typical HDD design consists of a spindle that holds one or more flat
circular disks called platters, onto which the data is recorded. The platters are made from
a non-magnetic material, usually aluminum alloy or glass, and are coated with a thin
layer of magnetic material, typically 10-20 nm in thickness with an outer layer of carbon
for protection. Older disks used iron(III) oxide as the magnetic material, but current disks
use a cobalt-based alloy.[citation needed]
A cross section of the magnetic surface in action. In this case the binary data is encoded using frequency
modulation.
The platters are spun at very high speeds. Information is written to a platter as it rotates
past devices called read-and-write heads that operate very close (tens of nanometers in
new drives) over the magnetic surface. The read-and-write head is used to detect and
modify the magnetization of the material immediately under it. There is one head for
each magnetic platter surface on the spindle, mounted on a common arm. An actuator
arm (or access arm) moves the heads on an arc (roughly radially) across the platters as
they spin, allowing each head to access almost the entire surface of the platter as it spins.
The arm is moved using a voice coil actuator or in some older designs a stepper motor.
The magnetic surface of each platter is conceptually divided into many small sub-
micrometre-sized magnetic regions, each of which is used to encode a single binary unit
of information. Initially the regions were oriented horizontally, but beginning about 2005,
the orientation was changed to perpendicular. Due to the polycrystalline nature of the
43
magnetic material each of these magnetic regions is composed of a few hundred magnetic
grains. Magnetic grains are typically 10 nm in size and each form a single magnetic
domain. Each magnetic region in total forms a magnetic dipole which generates a highly
localized magnetic field nearby. A write head magnetizes a region by generating a strong
local magnetic field. Early HDDs used an electromagnet both to magnetize the region and
to then read its magnetic field by using electromagnetic induction. Later versions of
inductive heads included metal in Gap (MIG) heads and thin film heads. As data density
increased, read heads using magnetoresistance (MR) came into use; the electrical
resistance of the head changed according to the strength of the magnetism from the
platter. Later development made use of spintronics; in these heads, the magnetoresistive
effect was much greater than in earlier types, and was dubbed "giant" magnetoresistance
(GMR). In today's heads, the read and write elements are separate, but in close proximity,
on the head portion of an actuator arm. The read element is typically magneto-resistive
while the write element is typically thin-film inductive.[8]
HD heads are kept from contacting the platter surface by the air that is extremely close to
the platter; that air moves at, or close to, the platter speed.[citation needed] The record and
playback head are mounted on a block called a slider, and the surface next to the platter is
shaped to keep it just barely out of contact. It's a type of air bearing.
In modern drives, the small size of the magnetic regions creates the danger that their
magnetic state might be lost because of thermal effects. To counter this, the platters are
coated with two parallel magnetic layers, separated by a 3-atom-thick layer of the non-
magnetic element ruthenium, and the two layers are magnetized in opposite orientation,
thus reinforcing each other.[9] Another technology used to overcome thermal effects to
allow greater recording densities is perpendicular recording, first shipped in 2005,[10] as of
2007 the technology was used in many HDDs.[11][12][13]
The grain boundaries turn out to be very important in HDD design. The reason is that, the
grains are very small and close to each other, so the coupling between adjacent grains is
very strong. When one grain is magnetized, the adjacent grains tend to be aligned parallel
to it or demagnetized. Then both the stability of the data and signal-to-noise ratio will be
sabotaged. A clear grain boundary can weaken the coupling of the grains and
subsequently increase the signal-to-noise ratio. In longitudinal recording, the single-
domain grains have uniaxial anisotropy with easy axes lying in the film plane. The
consequence of this arrangement is that adjacent magnets repel each other. Therefore the
magnetostatic energy is so large that it is difficult to increase areal density. Perpendicular
recording media, on the other hand, has the easy axis of the grains oriented perpendicular
to the disk plane. Adjacent magnets attract to each other and magnetostatic energy are
much lower. So, much higher areal density can be achieved in perpendicular recording.
Another unique feature in perpendicular recording is that a soft magnetic underlayer are
incorporated into the recording disk.This underlayer is used to conduct writing magnetic
flux so that the writing is more efficient. This will be discussed in writing process.
Therefore, a higher anisotropy medium film, such as L10-FePt and rare-earth magnets,
can be used.
44
[edit] Error handling
Modern drives also make extensive use of Error Correcting Codes (ECCs), particularly
Reed–Solomon error correction. These techniques store extra bits for each block of data
that are determined by mathematical formulas. The extra bits allow many errors to be
fixed. While these extra bits take up space on the hard drive, they allow higher recording
densities to be employed, resulting in much larger storage capacity for user data. [14] In
2009, in the newest drives, low-density parity-check codes (LDPC) are supplanting Reed-
Solomon. LDPC codes enable performance close to the Shannon Limit and thus allow for
the highest storage density available. [15]
Typical hard drives attempt to "remap" the data in a physical sector that is going bad to a
spare physical sector—hopefully while the number of errors in that bad sector is still
small enough that the ECC can completely recover the data without loss. The S.M.A.R.T.
system counts the total number of errors in the entire hard drive fixed by ECC, and the
total number of remappings, in an attempt to predict hard drive failure.
See also: file system
[edit] Architecture
A hard disk drive with the platters and motor hub removed showing the copper colored stator coils
surrounding a bearing at the center of the spindle motor. The orange stripe along the side of the arm is a
thin printed-circuit cable. The spindle bearing is in the center.
A typical hard drive has two electric motors, one to spin the disks and one to position the
read/write head assembly. The disk motor has an external rotor attached to the platters;
the stator windings are fixed in place. The actuator has a read-write head under the tip of
its very end (near center); a thin printed-circuit cable connects the read-write head to the
hub of the actuator. A flexible, somewhat 'U'-shaped, ribbon cable, seen edge-on below
and to the left of the actuator arm in the first image and more clearly in the second,
continues the connection from the head to the controller board on the opposite side.
The head support arm is very light, but also rigid; in modern drives, acceleration at the
head reaches 550 Gs.
45
Opened hard drive with top magnet removed, showing copper head actuator coil (top right).
The silver-colored structure at the upper left of the first image is the top plate of the
permanent-magnet and moving coil motor that swings the heads to the desired position (it
is shown removed in the second image). The plate supports a thin neodymium-iron-boron
(NIB) high-flux magnet. Beneath this plate is the moving coil, often referred to as the
voice coil by analogy to the coil in loudspeakers, which is attached to the actuator hub,
and beneath that is a second NIB magnet, mounted on the bottom plate of the motor
(some drives only have one magnet).
The voice coil, itself, is shaped rather like an arrowhead, and made of doubly-coated
coppmagnet wire. The inner layer is insulation, and the outer is thermoplastic, which
bonds the coil together after it's wound on a form, making it self-supporting. The portions
of the coil along the two sides of the arrowhead (which point to the actuator bearing
center) interact with the magnetic field, developing a tangential force that rotates the
actuator. Current flowing radially outward along one side of the arrowhead, and radially
inward on the other produces the tangential force. (See magnetic field#Force on a charged
particle.) If the magnetic field were uniform, each side would generate opposing forces
that would cancel each other out. Therefore the surface of the magnet is half N pole, half
S pole, with the radial dividing line in the middle, causing the two sides of the coil to see
opposite magnetic fields and produce forces that add instead of canceling. Currents along
the top and bottom of the coil produce radial forces that do not rotate the head.
[edit] Capacity and access speed
PC hard disk drive capacity (in GB). The vertical axis is logarithmic, so the fit line corresponds to
exponential growth.
Using rigid disks and sealing the unit allows much tighter tolerances than in a floppy disk
drive. Consequently, hard disk drives can store much more data than floppy disk drives
and can access and transmit it faster.
• As of April 2009, the highest capacity consumer HDDs are 2 TB.[16]

46
• A typical "desktop HDD" might store between 120 GB and 2 TB although rarely above 500GB of
data (based on US market data[17]) rotate at 5,400 to 10,000 rpm and have a media transfer rate of
1 Gbit/s or higher. (1 GB = 109 B; 1 Gbit/s = 109 bit/s)
• The fastest “enterprise” HDDs spin at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm, and can achieve sequential media
transfer speeds above 1.6 Gbit/s.[18] and a sustained transfer rate up to 125 MBytes/second.[18]
Drives running at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm use smaller platters to mitigate increased power
requirements (as they have less air drag) and therefore generally have lower capacity than the
highest capacity desktop drives.
• "Mobile HDDs", i.e., laptop HDDs, which are physically smaller than their desktop and enterprise
counterparts, tend to be slower and have lower capacity. A typical mobile HDD spins at
5,400 rpm, with 7,200 rpm models available for a slight price premium. Because of physically
smaller platter(s), mobile HDDs generally have lower capacity than their physically larger
counterparts.
The exponential increases in disk space and data access speeds of HDDs have enabled the
commercial viability of consumer products that require large storage capacities, such as
digital video recorders and digital audio players.[19] In addition, the availability of vast
amounts of cheap storage has made viable a variety of web-based services with
extraordinary capacity requirements, such as free-of-charge web search, web archiving
and video sharing (Google, Internet Archive, YouTube, etc.).
The main way to decrease access time is to increase rotational speed, thus reducing
rotational delay, while the main way to increase throughput and storage capacity is to
increase areal density. Based on historic trends, analysts predict a future growth in HDD
bit density (and therefore capacity) of about 40% per year.[20] Access times have not kept
up with throughput increases, which themselves have not kept up with growth in storage
capacity.
The first 3.5″ HDD marketed as able to store 1 TB was the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000. It
contains five platters at approximately 200 GB each, providing 1 TB (935.5 GiB) of
usable space;[21] note the difference between its capacity in decimal units (1 TB = 1012
bytes) and binary units (1 TiB = 1024 GiB = 240 bytes). Hitachi has since been joined by
Samsung (Samsung SpinPoint F1, which has 3 × 334 GB platters), Seagate and Western
Digital in the 1 TB drive market.[22][23]
In September 2009, Showa Denko announced capacity improvements in platters that they
manufacture for HDD makers. A single 2.5" platter is able to hold 334 GB worth of data,
and preliminary results for 3.5" indicate a 750 GB per platter capacity.[24]
Form factor Width Largest capacity Platters (Max)
5.25″ FH 146 mm 47 GB[25] (1998) 14
5.25″ HH 146 mm 19.3 GB[26] (1998) 4[27]

47
3.5″ SATA 102 mm 2 TB[28] (2009) 5
3.5″ PATA 102 mm 750 GB[29] (2006) ?
2.5″ SATA 69.9 mm 1 TB[30] (2009) 3
2.5″ PATA 69.9 mm 320 GB[31] (2009) ?
1.8″ SATA 54 mm 320 GB[32] (2009) 3
1.8″ PATA/LIF 54 mm 240 GB[33] (2008) 2
1.3″ 43 mm 40 GB[34] (2007) 1
1″ (CFII/ZIF/IDE-
42 mm 20 GB (2006) 1
Flex)
0.85″ 24 mm 8 GB[35] (2004) 1
[edit] Capacity measurements
A disassembled and labeled 1997 hard drive. All major components were placed on a mirror, which created
the symmetrical reflections.
Raw unformatted capacity of a hard disk drive is usually quoted with SI prefixes (metric
system prefixes), incrementing by powers of 1000; today that usually means gigabytes
(GB) and terabytes (TB). This is conventional for data speeds and memory sizes which
are not inherently manufactured in power of two sizes, as RAM and Flash memory are.
Hard disks by contrast have no inherent binary size as capacity is determined by number
of heads, tracks and sectors.
48
This can cause some confusion because some operating systems may report the formatted
capacity of a hard drive using binary prefix units which increment by powers of 1024.
A one terabyte (1 TB) disk drive would be expected to hold around 1 trillion bytes
(1,000,000,000,000) or 1000 GB; and indeed most 1 TB hard drives will contain slightly
more than this number. However some operating system utilities would report this as
around 931 GB or 953,674 MB, whereas the correct units would be 931 GiB or
953,674 MiB. (The actual number for a formatted capacity will be somewhat smaller still,
depending on the file system). Following are the correct ways of reporting one Terabyte.
SI prefixes (Hard Drive) equivalent Binary prefixes (OS) equivalent
1 TB (Terabytes) 1 * 10004 B 0.9095 TiB (Tebibytes) 0.9095 * 10244 B
1000 GB (Gigabytes) 1000 * 10003 B 931.3 GiB (Gibibytes) 931.3 * 10243 B
1,000,000 MB (Megabytes) 1,000,000 * 10002 B 953,674.3 MiB (Mebibytes) 953,674.2 * 10242 B
1,000,000,000 KB
1,000,000,000 * 1000 B 976,562,500 KiB (Kibibytes) 976,562,500 * 1024 B
(Kilobytes)
1,000,000,000,000 B (bytes) - 1,000,000,000,000 B (bytes) -
Microsoft Windows reports disk capacity both in a decimal integer to 12 or more digits
and in binary prefix units to three significant digits.
The capacity of an HDD can be calculated by multiplying the number of cylinders by the
number of heads by the number of sectors by the number of bytes/sector (most commonly
512). Drives with the ATA interface and a capacity of eight gigabytes or more behave as
if they were structured into 16383 cylinders, 16 heads, and 63 sectors, for compatibility
with older operating systems. Unlike in the 1980s, the cylinder, head, sector (C/H/S)
counts reported to the CPU by a modern ATA drive are no longer actual physical
parameters since the reported numbers are constrained by historic operating-system
interfaces and with zone bit recording the actual number of sectors varies by zone. Disks
with SCSI interface address each sector with a unique integer number; the operating
system remains ignorant of their head or cylinder count.
The old C/H/S scheme has been replaced by logical block addressing. In some cases, to
try to "force-fit" the C/H/S scheme to large-capacity drives, the number of heads was
given as 64, although no modern drive has anywhere near 32 platters.
49
[edit] Formatted disk overhead
For a formatted drive, the operating system's file system internal usage is another,
although minor, reason why a computer hard drive or storage device's capacity may show
its capacity as different from its theoretical capacity. This would include storage for, as
examples, a file allocation table (FAT) or inodes, as well as other other operating system
data structures. This file system overhead is usually less than 1% on drives larger than
100 MB. For RAID drives, data integrity and fault-tolerance requirements also reduce the
realized capacity. For example, a RAID1 drive will be about half the total capacity as a
result of data mirroring. For RAID5 drives with x drives you would lose 1/x of your
space to parity. RAID drives are multiple drives that appear to be one drive to the user,
but provide some kind of fault-tolerance.
A general rule of thumb to quickly convert the manufacturer's hard disk capacity to the
standard Microsoft Windows formatted capacity is 0.93*capacity of HDD from
manufacturer for HDDs less than a terabyte and 0.91*capacity of HDD from
manufacturer for HDDs equal to or greater than 1 terabyte.
[edit] Form factors
5¼″ full height 110 MB HDD,

2½″ (8.5 mm) 6495 MB HDD,
US/UK pennies for comparison.
Six hard drives with 8″, 5.25″, 3.5″, 2.5″, 1.8″, and 1″ disks, partially disassembled to show platters and
read-write heads, with a ruler showing inches.
Before the era of PCs and small computers, hard disks were of widely varying
dimensions, typically in free standing cabinets the size of washing machines (e.g. DEC
RP06 Disk Drive) or designed so that dimensions enabled placement in a 19" rack (e.g.
Diablo Model 31).6
50
With increasing sales of small computers having built in floppy-disk drives (FDDs),
HDDs that would fit to the FDD mountings became desirable, and this led to the
evolution of the market towards drives with certain Form factors, initially derived from
the sizes of 8", 5.25" and 3.5" floppy disk drives. Smaller sizes than 3.5" have emerged as
popular in the marketplace and/or been decided by various industry groups.
• 8 inch: 9.5 in × 4.624 in × 14.25 in (241.3 mm × 117.5 mm × 362 mm)

In 1979, Shugart Associates' SA1000 was the first form factor compatible HDD, having the same
dimensions and a compatible interface to the 8″ FDD.
• 5.25 inch: 5.75 in × 1.63 in × 8 in (146.1 mm × 41.4 mm × 203 mm)
This smaller form factor, first used in an HDD by Seagate in 1980, was the same size as full height
5¼-inch diameter FDD, i.e., 3.25 inches high. This is twice as high as "half height" commonly
used today; i.e., 1.63 in (41.4 mm). Most desktop models of drives for optical 120 mm disks
(DVD, CD) use the half height 5¼″ dimension, but it fell out of fashion for HDDs. The Quantum
Bigfoot HDD was the last to use it in the late 1990s, with “low-profile” (≈25 mm) and “ultra-low-
profile” (≈20 mm) high versions.
• 3.5 inch: 4 in × 1 in × 5.75 in (101.6 mm × 25.4 mm × 146 mm) = 376.77344 cm³
This smaller form factor, first used in an HDD by Rodime in 1984, was the same size as the "half
height" 3½″ FDD, i.e., 1.63 inches high. Today has been largely superseded by 1-inch high
“slimline” or “low-profile” versions of this form factor which is used by most desktop HDDs.
• 2.5 inch: 2.75 in × 0.374–0.59 in × 3.945 in (69.85 mm × 9.5–15 mm × 100 mm) = 66.3575 cm³-
104.775 cm³
This smaller form factor was introduced by PrairieTek in 1988; there is no corresponding FDD. It
is widely used today for hard-disk drives in mobile devices (laptops, music players, etc.) and as of
2008 replacing 3.5 inch enterprise-class drives. It is also used in the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3
video game consoles. Today, the dominant height of this form factor is 9.5 mm for laptop drives,
but high capacity drives (750 GB and 1 TB) have a height of 12.5 mm. Enterprise-class drives can
have a height up to 15 mm.[36]
• 1.8 inch: 54 mm × 8 mm × 71 mm = 30.672 cm³
This form factor, originally introduced by Integral Peripherals in 1993, has evolved into the ATA-
7 LIF with dimensions as stated. It is increasingly used in digital audio players and subnotebooks.
An original variant exists for 2–5 GB sized HDDs that fit directly into a PC card expansion slot.
These became popular for their use in iPods and other HDD based MP3 players.
• 1 inch: 42.8 mm × 5 mm × 36.4 mm
This form factor was introduced in 1999 as IBM's Microdrive to fit inside a CF Type II slot.
Samsung calls the same form factor "1.3 inch" drive in its product literature.[37]
• 0.85 inch: 24 mm × 5 mm × 32 mm
Toshiba announced this form factor in January 2004[38] for use in mobile phones and similar
applications, including SD/MMC slot compatible HDDs optimized for video storage on 4G
handsets. Toshiba currently sells a 4 GB (MK4001MTD) and 8 GB (MK8003MTD) version[6]
and holds the Guinness World Record for the smallest hard disk drive.[39]
3.5" and 2.5" hard disks currently dominate the market.
By 2009 all manufacturers had discontinued the development of new products for the 1.3-
inch, 1-inch and 0.85-inch form factors due to falling prices of flash memory,[40][41]
The inch-based nickname of all these form factors usually do not indicate any actual
product dimension (which are specified in millimeters for more recent form factors), but
just roughly indicate a size relative to disk diameters, in the interest of historic continuity.
51
[edit] Other characteristics

[edit] Data transfer rate
As of 2008, a typical 7200rpm desktop hard drive has a sustained "disk-to-buffer" data
transfer rate of about 70 megabytes per second.[42] This rate depends on the track location,
so it will be highest for data on the outer tracks (where there are more data sectors) and
lower toward the inner tracks (where there are fewer data sectors); and is generally
somewhat higher for 10,000rpm drives. A current widely-used standard for the "buffer-
to-computer" interface is 3.0 Gbit/s SATA, which can send about 300 megabyte/s from
the buffer to the computer, and thus is still comfortably ahead of today's disk-to-buffer
transfer rates. Data transfer rate (read/write) can be measured by writing a large file to
disk using special file generator tools, then reading back the file. Transfer rate can be
influenced by file system fragmentation and the layout of the files.
[edit] Seek time
Seek time currently ranges from just under 2 ms for high-end server drives, to 15 ms for
miniature drives, with the most common desktop type typically being around 9 ms.[citation
needed]
There has not been any significant improvement in this speed for some years. Some
early PC drives used a stepper motor to move the heads, and as a result had access times
as slow as 80–120 ms, but this was quickly improved by voice coil type actuation in the
late 1980s, reducing access times to around 20 ms.
[edit] Power consumption
Power consumption has become increasingly important, not just in mobile devices such
as laptops but also in server and desktop markets. Increasing data center machine density
has led to problems delivering sufficient power to devices (especially for spin up), and
getting rid of the waste heat subsequently produced, as well as environmental and
electrical cost concerns (see green computing). Similar issues exist for large companies
with thousands of desktop PCs. Smaller form factor drives often use less power than
larger drives. One interesting development in this area is actively controlling the seek
speed so that the head arrives at its destination only just in time to read the sector, rather
than arriving as quickly as possible and then having to wait for the sector to come around
(i.e. the rotational latency). Many of the hard drive companies are now producing Green
Drives that require much less power and cooling. Many of these 'Green Drives' spin
slower (<5400 RPM compared to 7200 RPM, 10,000 RPM, and 15,000 RPM) and also
generate less waste heat.
Also in Server and Workstation systems where there might be multiple hard disk drives,
there are various ways of controlling when the hard drives spin up (highest power draw).
On SCSI hard disk drives, the SCSI controller can directly control spin up and spin down
of the drives.
52
On Parallel ATA (aka PATA) and SATA hard disk drives, some support Power-up in
standby or PUIS. The hard disk drive will not spin up until the controller or system BIOS
issues a specific command to do so. This limits the power draw or consumption upon
power on.
On newer SATA hard disk drives, there is Staggered Spin Up feature. The hard disk drive
will not spin up until the SATA Phy comes ready (communications with the host
controller starts). The details are in the SATA specification - reference needed.
To further control or reduce power draw and consumption, the hard disk drive can be
spun down to reduce its power consumption.
[edit] Audible noise
Measured in dBA, audible noise is significant for certain applications, such as PVRs,
digital audio recording and quiet computers. Low noise disks typically use fluid bearings,
slower rotational speeds (usually 5,400 rpm) and reduce the seek speed under load
(AAM) to reduce audible clicks and crunching sounds. Drives in smaller form factors
(e.g. 2.5 inch) are often quieter than larger drives .
[edit] Shock resistance
Shock resistance is especially important for mobile devices. Some laptops now include
active hard drive protection that parks the disk heads if the machine is dropped, hopefully
before impact, to offer the greatest possible chance of survival in such an event.
Maximum shock tolerance to date is 350 Gs for operating and 1000 Gs for non-operating.
[43]
[edit] Access and interfaces

This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (July 2009)
Hard disk drives are accessed over one of a number of bus types, including parallel ATA
(P-ATA, also called IDE or EIDE), Serial ATA (SATA), SCSI, Serial Attached SCSI
(SAS), and Fibre Channel. Bridge circuitry is sometimes used to connect hard disk drives
to buses that they cannot communicate with natively, such as IEEE 1394, USB and SCSI.
Back in the days of the ST-506 interface, the data encoding scheme was also important.
The first ST-506 disks used Modified Frequency Modulation (MFM) encoding, and
transferred data at a rate of 5 megabits per second. Later on, controllers using 2,7 RLL
(or just "RLL") encoding increased the transfer rate by 50%, to 7.5 megabits per second;
this also increased disk capacity by fifty percent.
Many ST-506 interface disk drives were only specified by the manufacturer to run at the
lower MFM data rate, while other models (usually more expensive versions of the same
53
basic disk drive) were specified to run at the higher RLL data rate. In some cases, a disk
drive had sufficient margin to allow the MFM specified model to run at the faster RLL
data rate; however, this was often unreliable and was not recommended. An RLL-
certified disk drive could run on a MFM controller, but with 1/3 less data capacity and
speed.
Enhanced small disk interface (ESDI) also supported multiple data rates (ESDI disks
always used 2,7 RLL, but at 10, 15 or 20 megabits per second), but this was usually
negotiated automatically by the disk drive and controller; most of the time, however, 15
or 20 megabit ESDI disk drives weren't downward compatible (i.e. a 15 or 20 megabit
disk drive wouldn't run on a 10 megabit controller). ESDI disk drives typically also had
jumpers to set the number of sectors per track and (in some cases) sector size.
Modern hard drives present a consistent interface to the rest of the computer, no matter
what data encoding scheme is used internally. Typically a DSP in the electronics inside
the hard drive takes the raw analog voltages from the read head and uses PRML and
Reed–Solomon error correction[44] to decode the sector boundaries and sector data, then
sends that data out the standard interface. That DSP also watches the error rate detected
by error detection and correction, and performs bad sector remapping, data collection for
Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology, and other internal tasks.
SCSI originally had just one signaling frequency of 5 MHz for a maximum data rate of 5
megabytes/second over 8 parallel conductors, but later this was increased dramatically.
The SCSI bus speed had no bearing on the disk's internal speed because of buffering
between the SCSI bus and the disk drive's internal data bus; however, many early disk
drives had very small buffers, and thus had to be reformatted to a different interleave (just
like ST-506 disks) when used on slow computers, such as early Commodore Amiga, IBM
PC compatibles and Apple Macintoshes.
ATA disks have typically had no problems with interleave or data rate, due to their
controller design, but many early models were incompatible with each other and couldn't
run with two devices on the same physical cable in a master/slave setup. This was mostly
remedied by the mid-1990s, when ATA's specification was standardised and the details
began to be cleaned up, but still causes problems occasionally (especially with CD-ROM
and DVD-ROM disks, and when mixing Ultra DMA and non-UDMA devices).
Serial ATA does away with master/slave setups entirely, placing each disk on its own
channel (with its own set of I/O ports) instead.
FireWire/IEEE 1394 and USB(1.0/2.0) HDDs are external units containing generally
ATA or SCSI disks with ports on the back allowing very simple and effective expansion
and mobility. Most FireWire/IEEE 1394 models are able to daisy-chain in order to
continue adding peripherals without requiring additional ports on the computer itself.
USB however, is a point to point network and doesn't allow for daisy-chaining. USB
hubs are used to increase the number of available ports and are used for devices that don't
54
require charging since the current supplied by hubs is typically lower than what's
available from the built-in USB ports.
[edit] Disk interface families used in personal computers
Notable families of disk interfaces include:
• Historical bit serial interfaces — connect a hard disk drive (HDD) to a hard disk controller
(HDC) with two cables, one for control and one for data. (Each drive also has an additional cable
for power, usually connecting it directly to the power supply unit). The HDC provided significant
functions such as serial/parallel conversion, data separation, and track formatting, and required
matching to the drive (after formatting) in order to assure reliability. Each control cable could
serve two or more drives, while a dedicated (and smaller) data cable served each drive.
o ST506 used MFM (Modified Frequency Modulation) for the data encoding method.
o ST412 was available in either MFM or RLL (Run Length Limited) encoding variants.
o Enhanced Small Disk Interface (ESDI) was an interface developed by Maxtor to allow
faster communication between the processor and the disk than MFM or RLL.
• Modern bit serial interfaces — connect a hard disk drive to a host bus interface adapter (today
typically integrated into the "south bridge") with one data/control cable. (As for historical bit
serial interfaces above, each drive also has an additional power cable, usually direct to the power
supply unit.)
o Fibre Channel (FC), is a successor to parallel SCSI interface on enterprise market. It is a
serial protocol. In disk drives usually the Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL)
connection topology is used. FC has much broader usage than mere disk interfaces, it is
the cornerstone of storage area networks (SANs). Recently other protocols for this field,
like iSCSI and ATA over Ethernet have been developed as well. Confusingly, drives
usually use copper twisted-pair cables for Fibre Channel, not fibre optics. The latter are
traditionally reserved for larger devices, such as servers or disk array controllers.
o Serial ATA (SATA). The SATA data cable has one data pair for differential transmission
of data to the device, and one pair for differential receiving from the device, just like
EIA-422. That requires that data be transmitted serially. Similar differential signaling
system is used in RS485, LocalTalk, USB, Firewire, and differential SCSI.
o Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). The SAS is a new generation serial communication protocol
for devices designed to allow for much higher speed data transfers and is compatible with
SATA. SAS uses a mechanically identical data and power connector to standard 3.5"
SATA1/SATA2 HDDs, and many server-oriented SAS RAID controllers are also capable
of addressing SATA hard drives. SAS uses serial communication instead of the parallel
method found in traditional SCSI devices but still uses SCSI commands.
• Word serial interfaces — connect a hard disk drive to a host bus adapter (today typically
integrated into the "south bridge") with one cable for combined data/control. (As for all bit serial
interfaces above, each drive also has an additional power cable, usually direct to the power supply
unit.) The earliest versions of these interfaces typically had a 8 bit parallel data transfer to/from the
drive, but 16 bit versions became much more common, and there are 32 bit versions. Modern
variants have serial data transfer. The word nature of data transfer makes the design of a host bus
adapter significantly simpler than that of the precursor HDD controller.
o Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE), later renamed to ATA, with the alias P-ATA
("parallel ATA") retroactively added upon introduction of the new variant Serial ATA.
The original name reflected the innovative integration of HDD controller with HDD
itself, which was not found in earlier disks. Moving the HDD controller from the
interface card to the disk drive helped to standardize interfaces, and to reduce the cost and
complexity. The 40 pin IDE/ATA connection transfers 16 bits of data at a time on the
55
data cable. The data cable was originally 40 conductor, but later higher speed
requirements for data transfer to and from the hard drive led to an "ultra DMA" mode,
known as UDMA. Progressively faster versions of this standard ultimately added the
requirement for an 80 conductor variant of the same cable; where half of the conductors
provides grounding necessary for enhanced high-speed signal quality by reducing cross
talk. The interface for 80 conductor only has 39 pins, the missing pin acting as a key to
prevent incorrect insertion of the connector to an incompatible socket, a common cause
of disk and controller damage.
o EIDE was an unofficial update (by Western Digital) to the original IDE standard, with
the key improvement being the use of direct memory access (DMA) to transfer data
between the disk and the computer without the involvement of the CPU, an improvement
later adopted by the official ATA standards. By directly transferring data between
memory and disk, DMA eliminates the need for the CPU to copy byte per byte, therefore
allowing it to process other tasks while the data transfer occurs.
o Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), originally named SASI for Shugart Associates
System Interface, was an early competitor of ESDI. SCSI disks were standard on servers,
workstations, Commodore Amiga and Apple Macintosh computers through the mid-90s,
by which time most models had been transitioned to IDE (and later, SATA) family disks.
Only in 2005 did the capacity of SCSI disks fall behind IDE disk technology, though the
highest-performance disks are still available in SCSI and Fibre Channel only. The length
limitations of the data cable allows for external SCSI devices. Originally SCSI data
cables used single ended (common mode) data transmission, but server class SCSI could
use differential transmission, either low voltage differential (LVD) or high voltage
differential (HVD). ("Low" and "High" voltages for differential SCSI are relative to SCSI
standards and do not meet the meaning of low voltage and high voltage as used in general
electrical engineering contexts, as apply e.g. to statutory electrical codes; both LVD and
HVD use low voltage signals (3.3 V and 5 V respectively) in general terminology.)
Acronym or
Meaning Description
abbreviation
Shugart Associates
SASI Historical predecessor to SCSI.
System Interface
Small Computer
SCSI Bus oriented that handles concurrent operations.
System Interface
Improvement of SCSI, uses serial communication instead of

SAS Serial Attached SCSI
parallel.
ST-506 Seagate Technology Historical Seagate interface.
ST-412 Seagate Technology Historical Seagate interface (minor improvement over ST-506).
56
Enhanced Small Disk Historical; backwards compatible with ST-412/506, but faster
ESDI
Interface and more integrated.
Advanced Technology Successor to ST-412/506/ESDI by integrating the disk controller

ATA
Attachment completely onto the device. Incapable of concurrent operations.
Modification of ATA, uses serial communication instead of

SATA Serial ATA
parallel.
[edit] Integrity
An IBM HDD head resting on a disk platter. Since the drive is not in operation, the head is simply pressed
against the disk by the suspension.
Close-up of a hard disk head resting on a disk platter, and its suspension. A reflection of the head and
suspension are visible beneath on the mirror-like disk.
Due to the extremely close spacing between the heads and the disk surface, any
contamination of the read-write heads or platters can lead to a head crash — a failure of
the disk in which the head scrapes across the platter surface, often grinding away the thin
magnetic film and causing data loss. Head crashes can be caused by electronic failure, a
sudden power failure, physical shock, wear and tear, corrosion, or poorly manufactured
platters and heads.
The HDD's spindle system relies on air pressure inside the enclosure to support the heads
at their proper flying height while the disk rotates. Hard disk drives require a certain
range of air pressures in order to operate properly. The connection to the external
environment and pressure occurs through a small hole in the enclosure (about 0.5 mm in
57
diameter), usually with a filter on the inside (the breather filter).[45] If the air pressure is
too low, then there is not enough lift for the flying head, so the head gets too close to the
disk, and there is a risk of head crashes and data loss. Specially manufactured sealed and
pressurized disks are needed for reliable high-altitude operation, above about 3,000 m
(10,000 feet).[46] Modern disks include temperature sensors and adjust their operation to
the operating environment. Breather holes can be seen on all disk drives — they usually
have a sticker next to them, warning the user not to cover the holes. The air inside the
operating drive is constantly moving too, being swept in motion by friction with the
spinning platters. This air passes through an internal recirculation (or "recirc") filter to
remove any leftover contaminants from manufacture, any particles or chemicals that may
have somehow entered the enclosure, and any particles or outgassing generated internally
in normal operation. Very high humidity for extended periods can corrode the heads and
platters.
For giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads in particular, a minor head crash from
contamination (that does not remove the magnetic surface of the disk) still results in the
head temporarily overheating, due to friction with the disk surface, and can render the
data unreadable for a short period until the head temperature stabilizes (so called "thermal
asperity", a problem which can partially be dealt with by proper electronic filtering of the
read signal).
[edit] Actuation of moving arm
The hard drive's electronics control the movement of the actuator and the rotation of the
disk, and perform reads and writes on demand from the disk controller. Feedback of the
drive electronics is accomplished by means of special segments of the disk dedicated to
servo feedback. These are either complete concentric circles (in the case of dedicated
servo technology), or segments interspersed with real data (in the case of embedded servo
technology). The servo feedback optimizes the signal to noise ratio of the GMR sensors
by adjusting the voice-coil of the actuated arm. The spinning of the disk also uses a servo
motor. Modern disk firmware is capable of scheduling reads and writes efficiently on the
platter surfaces and remapping sectors of the media which have failed.
[edit] Landing zones and load/unload technology
Microphotograph of an older generation hard disk head and slider (1990s). The size of the front face (which
is the "trailing face" of the slider) is about 0.3 mm × 1.0 mm. It is the location of the actual 'head' (magnetic
sensors). The not visible bottom face of the slider is about 1.0 mm × 1.25 mm (so called "nano" size) and
faces the platter. It contains the lithographically micro-machined air bearing surface (ABS) that allows the
slider to fly in a highly controlled fashion. One functional part of the head is the round, orange structure
58
visible in the middle - the lithographically defined copper coil of the write transducer. Also note the electric
connections by wires bonded to gold-plated pads.
Modern HDDs prevent power interruptions or other malfunctions from landing its heads
in the data zone by parking the heads either in a landing zone or by unloading (i.e.,
load/unload) the heads. Some early PC HDDs did not park the heads and they could land
on data.
A landing zone is an area of the platter usually near its inner diameter (ID), where no
data is stored. This area is called the Contact Start/Stop (CSS) zone. Disks are designed
such that either a spring or, more recently, rotational inertia in the platters is used to park
the heads in the case of unexpected power loss. In this case, the spindle motor
temporarily acts as a generator, providing power to the actuator.
Spring tension from the head mounting constantly pushes the heads towards the platter.
While the disk is spinning, the heads are supported by an air bearing and experience no
physical contact or wear. In CSS drives the sliders carrying the head sensors (often also
just called heads) are designed to survive a number of landings and takeoffs from the
media surface, though wear and tear on these microscopic components eventually takes
its toll. Most manufacturers design the sliders to survive 50,000 contact cycles before the
chance of damage on startup rises above 50%. However, the decay rate is not linear:
when a disk is younger and has had fewer start-stop cycles, it has a better chance of
surviving the next startup than an older, higher-mileage disk (as the head literally drags
along the disk's surface until the air bearing is established). For example, the Seagate
Barracuda 7200.10 series of desktop hard disks are rated to 50,000 start-stop cycles, in
other words no failures attributed to the head-platter interface were seen before at least
50,000 start-stop cycles during testing.[47]
Around 1995 IBM pioneered a technology where a landing zone on the disk is made by a
precision laser process (Laser Zone Texture = LZT) producing an array of smooth
nanometer-scale "bumps" in a landing zone,[48] thus vastly improving stiction and wear
performance. This technology is still largely in use today (2008), predominantly in
desktop and enterprise (3.5 inch) drives. In general, CSS technology can be prone to
increased stiction (the tendency for the heads to stick to the platter surface), e.g. as a
consequence of increased humidity. Excessive stiction can cause physical damage to the
platter and slider or spindle motor.
Load/Unload technology relies on the heads being lifted off the platters into a safe
location, thus eliminating the risks of wear and stiction altogether. The first HDD
RAMAC and most early disk drives used complex mechanisms to load and unload the
heads. Modern HDDs use ramp loading, first introduced by Memorex in 1967,[49] to
load/unload onto plastic "ramps" near the outer disk edge.
All HDDs today still use one of these two technologies listed above. Each has a list of
advantages and drawbacks in terms of loss of storage area on the disk, relative difficulty
of mechanical tolerance control, non-operating shock robustness, cost of implementation,
etc.
59
Addressing shock robustness, IBM also created a technology for their ThinkPad line of
laptop computers called the Active Protection System. When a sudden, sharp movement
is detected by the built-in accelerometer in the Thinkpad, internal hard disk heads
automatically unload themselves to reduce the risk of any potential data loss or scratch
defects. Apple later also utilized this technology in their PowerBook, iBook, MacBook
Pro, and MacBook line, known as the Sudden Motion Sensor. Sony,[50] HP with their HP
3D DriveGuard[51] and Toshiba[52] have released similar technology in their notebook
computers.
This accelerometer based shock sensor has also been used for building cheap earthquake
sensor networks.[53]
[edit] Disk failures and their metrics

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of
Minimizing hard disk drive failure and data loss
Most major hard disk and motherboard vendors now support S.M.A.R.T. (Self-
Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology), which measures drive characteristics
such as temperature, spin-up time, data error rates, etc. Certain trends and sudden
changes in these parameters are thought to be associated with increased likelihood of
drive failure and data loss.
However, not all failures are predictable. Normal use eventually can lead to a breakdown
in the inherently fragile device, which makes it essential for the user to periodically back
up the data onto a separate storage device. Failure to do so will lead to the loss of data.
While it may sometimes be possible to recover lost information, it is normally an
extremely costly procedure, and it is not possible to guarantee success. A 2007 study
published by Google suggested very little correlation between failure rates and either
high temperature or activity level; however, the correlation between manufacturer/model
and failure rate was relatively strong. Statistics in this matter is kept highly secret by most
entities. Google did not publish the manufacturer's names along with their respective
failure rates,[54] though they have since revealed that they use Hitachi Deskstar drives in
some of their servers.[55] While several S.M.A.R.T. parameters have an impact on failure
probability, a large fraction of failed drives do not produce predictive S.M.A.R.T.
parameters.[54] S.M.A.R.T. parameters alone may not be useful for predicting individual
drive failures.[54]
A common misconception is that a colder hard drive will last longer than a hotter hard
drive. The Google study seems to imply the reverse -- "lower temperatures are associated
with higher failure rates". Hard drives with S.M.A.R.T.-reported average temperatures
below 27 °C (80.6 °F) had failure rates worse than hard drives with the highest reported
average temperature of 50 °C (122 °F), failure rates at least twice as high as the optimum
S.M.A.R.T.-reported temperature range of 36 °C (96.8 °F) to 47 °C (116.6 °F).[54]
60
SCSI, SAS and FC drives are typically more expensive and are traditionally used in
servers and disk arrays, whereas inexpensive ATA and SATA drives evolved in the home
computer market and were perceived to be less reliable. This distinction is now becoming
blurred.
The mean time between failures (MTBF) of SATA drives is usually about 600,000 hours
(some drives such as Western Digital Raptor have rated 1.2 million hours MTBF), while
SCSI drives are rated for upwards of 1.5 million hours.[citation needed] However, independent
research indicates that MTBF is not a reliable estimate of a drive's longevity. [56] MTBF is
conducted in laboratory environments in test chambers and is an important metric to
determine the quality of a disk drive before it enters high volume production. Once the
drive product is in production, the more valid metric is annualized failure rate (AFR).
[citation needed]
AFR is the percentage of real-world drive failures after shipping.
SAS drives are comparable to SCSI drives, with high MTBF and high reliability.[citation
needed]
Enterprise S-ATA drives designed and produced for enterprise markets, unlike standard
S-ATA drives, have reliability comparable to other enterprise class drives.[57][58]
Typically enterprise drives (all enterprise drives, including SCSI, SAS, enterprise SATA
and FC) experience between 0.70%-0.78% annual failure rates from the total installed
drives.[citation needed]
Eventually all mechanical hard disk drives fail. And thus the strategy to mitigate loss of
data is to have redundancy in some form, like RAID and backup. RAID should never be
relied on as backup, as RAID controllers also break down, making the disks inaccessible.
Following a backup strategy, for example - daily differential and weekly full backups, is
the only sure way to prevent data loss.
[edit] Manufacturers
A Western Digital 3.5 inch 250 GB SATA HDD. This specific model features both SATA and Molex
power inputs.
61
Seagate's hard disk drives being manufactured in a factory in Wuxi, China

See also List of defunct hard disk manufacturers
CD-ROM
Short for Compact Disc-Read Only Memory, CD-ROM drives are CD players inside computers that can
have speeds in the range from 1x and beyond, and have the capability of playing audio CDs and computer
data CDs. Below is a picture of the front and back of a standard CD-ROM drive.
Interfaces
Below are the different types of Interfaces that allow a CD-ROM and other disc drives to
connect to the computer.
• IDE / ATA - One of the most commonly used interfaces used still today to connect disc drives to
the computer.
• Panasonic - Older proprietary interface.
• Parallel - Interface used with old external CD-ROM drives.
• PCMCIA (PC Card) - Interface sometimes used to connect external disc drives to laptop
computers.
• SATA - Quickly replacing IDE as the new standard to connect disc drives.
• SCSI - It is highly recommended to get a card that matches the CD-ROM drive as some of the
earlier drives had proprietary SCSI interfaces. Otherwise, a SCSI-2 card is recommended.
• USB - Interface most commonly used to connect external disc drives.
62
CD-ROM transfer speeds
Below is the standard transfer rates and access times of the majority of CD-ROM drives.
The below figures are averages you can expect to find on each speed of CD-ROM drive.
These averages may be slower or faster than your CD-ROM drive and to where the CD-
ROM is accessing the data from the CD-ROM. In general the higher this number is the
faster the transfer rate or in the case of a disc burner the faster the write rate.
Drive speed Transfer rate (BPS) Access time (ms)

Single-speed (1x) 153,600 400
Double-speed (2x) 307,200 300
Triple-speed (3x) 460,800 200
Quad-speed (4x) 614,400 150
Six-speed (6x) 921,600 150
Eight-speed (8x) 1,228,800 100
Ten-speed (10x) 1,536,000 100
Twelve-speed (12x) 1,843,200 100
Sixteen-speed (16x) 2,457,600 90
Eighteen-speed (18x) 2,764,800 90
Twenty-four-speed (24x) 3,686,400 90
Thirty-two-speed (32x) 4,915,200 85
One-hundred-speed (100x) 15,360,000 80
CAV drives (12x - 24x) 1,843,200 - 3,686,400 150-90
See document CH000219 which explains CAV vs. CLV and what max means when
written next to the speed of the CD-ROM drive. Additional information about the trailing
x following the CD-ROM speed can be found on our x dictionary definition.
• Support and help with computer CD-ROM drives can be found on our CD-ROM help page.
Real-time clock
63
Dallas semiconductor realtime clock from an older PC. This version also contains a battery backed SRAM.
A real-time clock (RTC) is a computer clock (most often in the form of an integrated
circuit) that keeps track of the current time. Although the term often refers to the devices
in personal computers, servers and embedded systems, RTCs are present in almost any
electronic device which needs to keep accurate time.
Contents
• 1 Terminology
• 2 Purpose
• 3 Power source
• 4 Timing
• 5 Examples
• 6 See also
• 7 References
[edit] Terminology
The term is used to avoid confusion with ordinary hardware clocks which are only signals
that govern digital electronics, and do not count time in human units. RTC should not be
confused with real-time computing, which shares its three-letter acronym, but does not
directly relate to time of day.
[edit] Purpose
Although keeping time can be done without an RTC[1], using one has benefits:
• Low power consumption (important when running from alternate power)

• Frees the main system for time-critical tasks
• Sometimes more accurate than other methods
A GPS receiver can shorten its startup time by comparing the current time, according to
its RTC, with the time at which it last had a valid signal.[2] If it has been less than a few
hours then the previous ephemeris is still usable.
64
[edit] Power source
RTCs often have an alternate source of power, so they can continue to keep time while
the primary source of power is off or unavailable. This alternate source of power is
normally a lithium battery in older systems, but some newer systems use a
supercapacitor[3], because they are rechargeable and can be soldered. The alternate power
source can also supply power to battery backed RAM.
[edit] Timing
Most RTCs use a crystal oscillator[4][5], but some use the power line frequency[6] . In many
cases the oscillator's frequency is 32.768 kHz.[4] This is the same frequency used in quartz
clocks and watches, and for the same reasons, namely that the frequency is exactly 215
cycles per second, which is a convenient rate to use with simple binary counter circuits.
[edit] Examples
This chip, labeled ODIN, is a generic equivalent to a particular Dallas RTC.
Many integrated circuit manufacturers make RTCs, including Intersil, Maxim, Philips,
Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics. The RTC was introduced to PC compatibles
by the IBM PC/AT in 1984, which used a MC146818 RTC. Later Dallas made
compatible RTCs, which was often used in older personal computers, and are easily
found on motherboards because of their distinctive black battery cap and silkscreened
logo. In newer systems the RTC is integrated into the southbridge chip.[7]
Some microcontrollers have a real-time clock built in, generally only the ones with many
other features and peripherals.
TV tuner card
65
Hauppauge WinTV TV tuner card
A TV tuner card is a computer component that allows television signals to be received

by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to
record television programs onto a hard disk.
Contents
• 1 Variants
o 1.1 Analog TV tuners
o 1.2 Digital TV tuners
o 1.3 Hybrid tuners
o 1.4 Combo tuners
o 1.5 Mobile TV
• 2 Video capture
• 3 See also
[edit] Variants
A DVB-S2 tuner card

66
D-Link external TV tuner
TV tuners are available in a number of different interfaces: as PCI bus expansion card,
PCI Express (PCIe) bus, PCMCIA, ExpressCard, or USB devices also exist. In addition,
some video cards double as TV tuners, notably the ATI All-In-Wonder series. The card
contains a tuner and an analog-to-digital converter (collectively known as the analog
front end) along with demodulation and interface logic. Some lower-end cards lack an
onboard processor and, like a Winmodem, rely on the system's CPU for demodulation.
There are currently four kinds of tuner card on the market:
[edit] Analog TV tuners
Analog television cards output a raw video stream, suitable for real-time viewing but
ideally requiring some sort of compression if it is to be recorded. More advanced TV
tuners encode the signal to Motion JPEG or MPEG, relieving the main CPU of this load.
Some cards also have analog input (composite video or S-Video) and many also provide
FM radio.
[edit] Digital TV tuners
Digital TV is broadcast as an MPEG-2 stream, so no encoder is necessary; instead, the

digital cards either provide the whole MPEG transport stream or extract the individual
(audio and video) elementary streams.
[edit] Hybrid tuners
A hybrid tuner has one tuner that can be configured to act as an analog tuner or a digital
tuner. Switching in between the systems is fairly easy, but cannot be done immediately.
The card operates as a digital tuner or an analog tuner until reconfigured.
[edit] Combo tuners
This is similar to a hybrid tuner, except there are two separate tuners on the card. One can
watch analog while recording digital, or vice versa. The card operates as an analog tuner
and a digital tuner simultaneously. The advantages over two separate cards are cost and
utilization of expansion slots in the computer. As many regions around the world convert
from analog to digital broadcasts, these tuners are gaining popularity.
Like the analog cards, the Hybrid and Combo tuners can have specialized chips on the
tuner card to perform the encoding, or leave this task to the CPU. The tuner cards with
this 'hardware encoding' are generally thought of as being higher quality.[citation needed] Small
USB tuner sticks have become more popular in 2006 and 2007 and are expected to
increase in popularity. These small tuners generally do not have hardware encoding due
to size and heat constraints.
67
While most TV tuners are limited to the radio frequencies and video formats used in the
country of sale, many TV tuners used in computers use DSP, so a firmware upgrade is
often all that's necessary to change the supported video format. Many newer TV tuners
have flash memory big enough to hold the firmware sets for decoding several different
video formats, making it possible to use the tuner in many countries without having to
flash the firmware. However, while it is generally possible to flash a card from one
analog format to another due to the similarities, it is generally not possible to flash a card
from one digital format to another due to differences in decode logic necessary.
Many TV tuners can function as FM radios; this is because there are similarities between
broadcast television and FM radio. The FM radio spectrum is close to (or even inside)
that used by VHF terrestrial TV broadcasts. And many broadcast television systems
around the world use FM audio. So listening to an FM radio station is simply a case of
configuring existing hardware.
[edit] Mobile TV
External TV tuner card attachments are available for mobile phone handsets like the
iPhone, for watching mobile TV, via TV stations on 1seg in Japan (SoftBank), and for
soon for the proprietary subscription-based MediaFLO in the U.S. (Qualcomm). There is
also a "converter" for watching DVB-H in Europe and elsewhere via WiFi streaming
video (PacketVideo).
[edit] Video capture
Video capture cards are a class of video capture devices designed to plug directly into
expansion slots in personal computers and servers. Models from many manufacturers are
available; all comply with one of the popular host bus standards including PCI, newer
PCI Express (PCIe) or AGP bus interfaces.
These cards typically include one or more software drivers to expose the cards' features,
via various operating systems, to software applications that further process the video for
specific purposes. As a class, the cards are used to capture baseband analog composite
video, S-Video, and, in models equipped with tuners, RF modulated video. Some
specialized cards support digital video via digital video delivery standards including
Serial Digital Interface (SDI) and, more recently, the emerging HDMI standard. These
models often support both standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) variants.
While most PCI and PCI-Express capture devices are dedicated to that purpose, AGP
capture devices are usually included with the graphics adapted on the board as an all-in-
one package. Unlike video editing cards, these cards tend to not have dedicated hardware
for processing video beyond the analog-to-digital conversion. Most, but not all, video
capture cards also support one or more channels of audio.
There are many applications for video capture cards including converting a live analog
source into some type of analog or digital media, (such as a VHS tape to a DVD),
68
archiving, video editing, scheduled recording (such as a DVR), television tuning, or video
surveillance. The cards may have significantly different designs to optimally support each
of these functions.
One of the most popular applications for video capture cards is to capture video and
audio for live Internet video streaming. The live stream can also be simultaneously
archived and formatted for video on demand. The capture cards used for this purpose are
typically purchased, installed, and configured in host PC systems by hobbyists or systems
integrators. Some care is required to select suitable host systems for video encoding,
particularly HD applications which are more affected by CPU performance, number of
CPU cores, and certain motherboard characteristics that heavily influence capture
performance.
USB flash drive

"JumpDrive" redirects here. For the fictional propulsion system, see Jump drive.
A SanDisk 16 GB USB retractable flash drive.
A USB flash drive consists of flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB
(Universal Serial Bus) 1.1 or 2.0 interface. USB flash drives are typically removable and
rewritable, much smaller than a floppy disk, and most weigh less than 1 ounce (30 g).[1]
Storage capacities can range from a few megabytes to 256 GB[2] with steady
improvements in size and price per capacity. Some allow 1 million write or erase cycles [3]
[4]
and have 10-year data retention,[5].
USB flash drives are often used for the same purposes as floppy disks were. They are
smaller, faster, have thousands of times more capacity, and are more durable and reliable
due to their lack of moving parts. Until approximately 2005, most PC and laptop
computers were supplied with floppy disc drives, but most recent equipment has
abandoned floppy disk drives in favor of USB ports.
69
Flash drives use the USB mass storage standard, supported natively by modern operating
systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unix-like systems. USB drives
with USB 2.0 support can store more data and transfer faster than a much larger optical
disc drive and can be read by most other systems such as the Microsoft Xbox 360.
Nothing moves mechanically in a flash drive; the term drive persists because computers
read and write flash-drive data using the same system commands as for a mechanical disk
drive, with the storage appearing to the computer operating system and user interface as
just another drive.[4] Flash drives are very robust mechanically, and can withstand
anything that does not actually break the circuit board or connector.
A flash drive consists of a small printed circuit board carrying the circuit elements and a
USB connector, insulated electrically and protected inside a plastic, metal, or rubberized
case which can be carried in a pocket or on a key chain, for example. The USB connector
may be protected by a removable cap or by retracting into the body of the drive, although
it is not likely to be damaged if unprotected. Most flash drives use a standard type-A
USB connection allowing plugging into a port on a personal computer, but drives for
other interfaces also exist.
Most USB flash drives derive their power from the USB connection, and do not require a
battery. Some devices which combine the functionality of a digital audio player with
flash-drive-type storage require a battery for the player function.
70
Contents
• 1 Technology
• 2 History
o 2.1 First commercial product
o 2.2 Second generation
• 3 Design and implementation
o 3.1 Essential components
o 3.2 Additional components
o 3.3 Size and style of packaging
o 3.4 File system
• 4 Fake products
• 5 Uses
o 5.1 Personal data transport
o 5.2 Secure storage of data, application and software files
o 5.3 System administration
o 5.4 Application carriers
o 5.5 Computer forensics and law enforcement
o 5.6 Booting operating systems
o 5.7 Windows Vista and Windows 7 ReadyBoost
o 5.8 Audio players
o 5.9 Music storage and marketing
o 5.10 In arcades
o 5.11 Brand and product promotion
o 5.12 Backup
• 6 Advantages and disadvantages
o 6.1 Advantages
o 6.2 Disadvantages
• 7 Comparison with other portable storage
o 7.1 Tape
o 7.2 Floppy disk
o 7.3 Optical media
o 7.4 Flash memory cards
o 7.5 External hard disk
o 7.6 Obsolete devices
• 8 Security
o 8.1 Encryption
o 8.2 Security threats
o 8.3 Security breaches
• 9 Naming
• 10 Current and future developments
• 11 Flash drives for non-USB interfaces
• 12 See also
• 13 References
[edit] Technology
Main articles: Flash memory and USB
71
Flash memory combines a number of older technologies, with lower cost, lower power
consumption and small size made possible by recent advances in microprocessor
technology. The memory storage was based on earlier EPROM and EEPROM
technologies. These had very limited capacity, were very slow for both reading and
writing, required complex high-voltage drive circuitry, and could only be re-written after
erasing the entire contents of the chip.
Hardware designers later developed EEPROMs with the erasure region broken up into
smaller "fields" that could be erased individually without affecting the others. Altering
the contents of a particular memory location involved copying the entire field into an off-
chip buffer memory, erasing the field, modifying the data as required in the buffer, and
re-writing it into the same field. This required considerable computer support, and PC-
based EEPROM flash memory systems often carried their own dedicated microprocessor
system. Flash drives are more or less a miniaturized version of this.
The development of high-speed serial data interfaces such as USB made semiconductor
memory systems with serially accessed storage viable, and the simultaneous development
of small, high-speed, low-power microprocessor systems allowed this to be incorporated
into extremely compact systems. Serial access requires far fewer electrical connections
for the memory chips than does parallel access, which has simplified the manufacture of
multi-gigabyte drives.
Computers access modern flash memory systems very much like hard disk drives, where
the controller system has full control over where information is actually stored. The
actual EEPROM writing and erasure processes are, however, still very similar to the
earlier systems described above.
Many low-cost MP3 players simply add extra software and a battery to a standard flash
memory control microprocessor so it can also serve as a music playback decoder. Most of
these players can also be used as a conventional flash drive, for storing files of any type.
[edit] History
[edit] First commercial product
Trek Technology and IBM began selling the first USB flash drives commercially in 2000.
Singaporean company Trek Technology sold a model dubbed the "ThumbDrive," and
IBM marketed the first such drives in North America, with its product the "DiskOnKey"
(which was manufactured by the Israeli company M-Systems). IBM's USB flash drive
became available on December 15, 2000,[6] and had a storage capacity of 8 MB, more
than five times the capacity of the commonly used floppy disks (floppy disks having a
capacity of 1.44MB).
In 2000 Lexar introduced a Compact Flash (CF) card with a USB connection, and a
companion card read/writer and USB cable that eliminated the need for a USB hub.
72
On July 24, 2002 Netac Technology was granted a highly-contested Chinese patent for
the USB flash drive.[7]
In 2004 Trek Technology brought several lawsuits against other USB flash drive
manufacturers and distributors in an attempt to assert its patent rights to the USB flash
drive. A court in Singapore ordered competitors to cease selling similar products[8] that
would be covered by Trek's patent, but a court in the United Kingdom revoked [9] one of
Trek's patents in that country.
[edit] Second generation
Modern flash drives have USB 2.0 connectivity. However, they do not currently use the
full 480 Mbit/s (60MB/s) the USB 2.0 Hi-Speed specification supports due to technical
limitations inherent in NAND flash. The fastest drives currently available use a dual
channel controller, although they still fall considerably short of the transfer rate possible
from a current generation hard disk, or the maximum high speed USB throughput.
Typical overall file transfer speeds vary considerably, and should be checked before
purchase. Speeds may be given in Mbyte per second, Mbit per second, or optical drive
multipliers such as "180X" (180 times 150 KiB per second). Typical fast drives claim to
read at up to 30 megabytes/s (MB/s) and write at about half that. Older "USB full speed"
12 Mbit/s devices are limited to a maximum of about 1 MB/s.
[edit] Design and implementation
One end of the device is fitted with a single male type-A USB connector. Inside the
plastic casing is a small printed circuit board. Mounted on this board is some power
circuitry and a small number of surface-mounted integrated circuits (ICs). Typically, one
of these ICs provides an interface to the USB port, another drives the onboard memory,
and the other is the flash memory.
Drives typically use the USB mass storage device class to communicate with the host.
73
[edit] Essential
components
There are typically four parts

to a flash drive:
• Male type-A USB

connector – provides an
interface to the host
computer.
• USB mass storage
controller – implements the
USB host controller. The
controller contains a small
microcontroller with a
small amount of on-chip Internals of a typical USB flash drive
ROM and RAM.
1 USB connector
• NAND flash memory chip
– stores data. NAND flash 2 USB mass storage controller device
is typically also used in
digital cameras. 3 Test points
• Crystal oscillator –
4 Flash memory chip
produces the device's main
12 MHz clock signal and 5 Crystal oscillator
controls the device's data
output through a phase- 6 LED
locked loop.
7 Write-protect switch (Optional)
[edit] Additional 8 Space for second flash memory chip
components
The typical device may also include:
• Jumpers and test pins – for testing during the flash drive's manufacturing or loading code into the
microprocessor.
• LEDs – indicate data transfers or data reads and writes.
• Write-protect switches – indicate whether the device should be in "write-protection" mode.
• Unpopulated space – provides space to include a second memory chip. Having this second space
allows the manufacturer to use a single printed circuit board for more than one storage size device.
• USB connector cover or cap – reduces the risk of damage and prevents the ingress of fluff or other
contaminants, and improves overall device appearance. Some flash drives use retractable USB
connectors instead. Others have a swivel arrangement so that the connector can be protected
without removing anything.
• Transport aid – the cap or the body often contains a hole suitable for connection to a key chain or
lanyard. Connecting the cap, rather than the body, can allow the drive itself to be lost.
• Some drives offer expandable storage via an internal memory card slot, much like a memory card
reader.[10][11]

Basics of Computer Hardware

Transféré par

Informations du document

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Basics of Computer Hardware

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

1

Basics of computer hardware

A computer is a programmable machine (or more precisely, a programmable

A digital computer is a programmable clocked sequential state machine. A digital

What are computers used for?

Computers are used for a wide variety of purposes.

Scientific processing is using a computer to support science. This can be as simple as

Multimedia includes content creation (composing music, performing music,

A slightly less crude oversimplification divides a computer into five elements:

Arithmetic and logic

Input output overview

A processor typically contains an arithmetic/logic unit (ALU), control unit (including

Hybrid processors combine elements of two or three of the major classes of

Arithmetic and logic

An arithmetic/logic unit (ALU) performs integer arithmetic and logic operations. It

An arithmetic/logic unit (ALU) performs integer arithmetic and logic operations. It

For more information, see buses.

Input devices are devices that bring information into a computer.

Keyboards, Mouse, Panderers, joystick, card rider, Light pen, Scanner.

Output devices are devices that bring information out of a computer.

Monitor, Printer, CD- Rom,

In this article, we'll look at the general components of a motherboard. Then,

Motherboards tie everything in your computer together.

runs the computer or enhances its performance is either part of the

• The socket for the microprocessor determines what kind of Central

The slots and ports found on a motherboard include:

peripheral component Interconnect (PCI)- connections for video,

Sockets and CPUs

A Socket 939 motherboard

A Socket LGA755 motherboard

Socket A - for older AMD Athlon processors Chipsets

The north bridge and south bridge

Chipset selection and CPU selection go hand in hand, because

information to travel. The speed of the bus, measured in megahertz (MHz),

Busses connect different parts of the motherboard

Here are some of the other busses found on a motherboard:

Memory and Other Features

The amount of memory available also controls how much

200-pin DDR SODIMM RAM

In the earliest days of motherboards, virtually

Every desktop and laptop computer in common use today contains a

Every desktop and Laptop computer in common use today contains a

• The operating system - The operating system provides a set of

Booting the Computer

If it is a cold boot, the BIOS verifies RAM by performing a read/write test of

• System Time/Date - Set the system time and date

Updating Your BIOS

Occasionally, a computer will need to have its BIOS updated. This is

Major BIOS manufacturers include:

• American mega trends Inc.(AMI)

Sound channels and polyphony

Colour Function Connector Symbol

Analog line level audio output for a special

Analog line level audio output for surround 3.5 mm

Analog line level audio output for center 3.5 mm

Arrow going out both sides

History of sound cards for the IBM PC architecture

A sound card based on VLA entry chip.

[edit] Industry adoption

[edit] Feature evolution

[edit] Professional soundcards (audio interfaces)

An M-Audio professional sound card with its breakout cables.

One of the limitations of consumer soundcards is their comparatively large sampling

[edit] Sound devices other than expansion cards