Mother Boards

This is a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) to interconnect all the Peripherals Inside the Motherboard. It is designed with Multi Layered Printed Circuit. Apart of the Circuit Board, it Contains One or Two Processor Slot(s), Memory Module Slots, Expansion Slots, Main Chipsets, Power Circuits and Connectors, BIOS or CMOS with Battery and Jumper, Keyboard Connector, Mouse Connector, USB Connectors, Serial Ports, Parallell Ports, Onboard Display Connector, Sound Connectors and Front Panel.

There are mainly 2 Models of Motherboards are there. 1. AT 2. ATX. Again, there are two more types of Motherboards are there. a. Off Board b. On Board.

AT : This is the Old Technology Motherboards, which are used from the beginning of 8088 Model Motherboards to Pentium III Stage Motherboards. We can Identify with the 5 Pin Serial Keyboard Connector of the Board.

ATX : This is the Modern Technology Motherboard, which is designed in Pentium II Stage, and Still is in use. It is equipped with the Advance Feautures, Bus Speeds and Other Enhancements which are not in the AT Technology.

Off Board : This is the Plain Motherboard which is not having any additional controllers like Video Controller, Sound Controller, Ethernet Controller. Except IDE Controller, no controllers are given inside. We must use Video, Sound, Modem, Ethernet, TV Controllers as per usage.

On Board : This type of Motherboards are additionally equipped with Video/Agp Controller, Sound Controller and Ethernet Controller. We need not use these controllers in the expansion slots.

For Best Performance, Off Boards are best, as they are having seaparate controllers for each purpose. But, in On Boards , Main Chipset has to controll all the controllers inside the Motherboard, as a result it will work slower than Off Board.

Example of Latest ATX Motherboard