Typical PCI cards used in PCs include: network cards, sound cards, modems, extra ports such as USB or serial, TV tuner cards and disk controllers. Historically video cards were typically PCI devices, but growing bandwidth requirements soon outgrew the capabilities of PCI. PCI video cards remain available for supporting extra monitors and upgrading PCs that do not have any AGP or PCI Express slots.
When purchasing PCI expansion cards you need to be careful about compatibility with the PCI expansion slots on the motherboard. There are two things which vary in PCI expansion slots: the voltage, and the number of bits. PCI Slots can support either 3.3 volts or 5 volts. PCI has a system of keys which only allows expansion cards to fit into the motherboard connector if it provides the correct voltage. As shown in the picture above, a 5 volt PCI motherboard connector has a key near the right end. A 5 volt PCI expansion card has a slot which lines up with the key. That allows you to plug a 5 volt PCI card into a 5 volt PCI connector. You can see a "real" PCI connector in the motherboard picture above. 3.3 volts is similar but its key is near the left end. This system allows you to plug 5 volt cards into 5 volt PCI connectors but not into 3.3 volt PCI connectors. Likewise, you can only plug 3.3 volt cards into 3.3 volt PCI connectors and not into 5 volt connectors. If the expansion card can run on both 3.3 and 5 volts then it has both slots and fits into both 3.3 and 5 volt PCI motherboard connectors. PCI expansion slots also support two different widths: 32 bits, and 64 bits. The 64 bit motherboard connector is longer than a 32 bit connector. Most PC motherboards come with 32 bit slots but some come with 64 bit slots. A 32 bit PCI expansion card will work fine in a 64 bit slot. PCI video cards are 32 bit cards.
BIOS(Basic input output sysytem):The BIOS is boot firmware, designed to be the first code run by a PC when powered on. The initial function of the BIOS is to identify, test, and initialize system devices such as the video display card, hard disk, floppy disk and other hardware. The BIOS prepares the machine for a known state, so that software stored on compatible media can be loaded, executed, and given control of the PC. This process is known as booting, or booting up, which is short for bootstrapping.
BIOS programs are stored on a chip(ROM) and are built to work with various devices that make up the complementary chipset of the system.
note:"CMOS is a type of battery often used to power the circuit which allows the information in BIOS to be stored. If the CMOS battery is drained or removed all the system configuration data in BIOS will be reset to factory defaults every time the computer is shut off."
AMR slot:The audio/modem riser, also known as an AMR slot, is an expansion slot found on the motherboards of some Pentium III, Pentium 4, and Athlon personal computers. It was designed by Intel to interface with chipsets and provide analog functionality, such as sound cards and modems, on an expansion card.
Technologically, it has been superseded by the "Advanced Communications Riser (ACR)" and Intel's own "Communications and Networking Riser (CNR)". However, riser technologies in general never really took off. 'Modems generally remained as PCI cards' while 'audio interfaces were integrated on to motherboards' so the slot is somewhat worthless.
AGPslot:The Accelerated Graphics Port (also called Advanced Graphics Port, often shortened to AGP) is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching a video card to a computer's motherboard, primarily to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics.
The primary advantage of AGP over PCI is that it provides a dedicated pathway between the slot and the processor rather than sharing the PCI bus. In addition to a lack of contention for the bus, the point-to-point connection allows for higher clock speeds.
ISA(Industry Standard Architecture)slot:Designed to connect peripheral cards to the motherboard, ISA allows for bus mastering although only the first 16 MB of main memory are available for direct access. The 8-bit bus ran at 4.77 MHz (the clock speed of the IBM PC and IBM PC/XT's 8088 CPU), while the 16-bit bus operated at 6 or 8 MHz (because the 80286 CPUs in IBM PC/AT computers ran at 6 MHz in early models and 8 MHz in later models.)
PCI slots were the first physically-incompatible expansion ports to directly squeeze ISA off the motherboard. At first, motherboards were largely ISA, including a few PCI slots. By the mid-1990s, the two slot types were roughly balanced, and ISA slots soon were in the minority of consumer systems. Microsoft's PC 97 specification recommended that ISA slots be removed entirely, though the system architecture still required ISA to be present in some vestigial way internally to handle the floppy drive, serial ports, etc. ISA slots remained for a few more years, and towards the turn of the century it was common to see systems with an Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) sitting near the central processing unit, an array of PCI slots, and one or two ISA slots near the end. Now (in late 2008), even floppy disk drives and serial ports are disappearing, and the extinction of vestigial ISA from chipsets may be on the horizon.
North bridge:The northbridge typically handles communications among the CPU, RAM, and PCI Express (or AGP) video cards, and the southbridge.
CPU socket:A cpu socket or cpu slot is an electrical component that attaches to a printed circuit board (PCB) and is designed to house a CPU (also called a microprocessor). It is a special type of integrated circuit socket designed for very high pin counts. A CPU socket provides many functions, including providing a physical structure to support the CPU, providing support for a heatsink, facilitating replacement (as well as reducing cost) and most importantly forming an electrical interface both with the CPU and the PCB.
DIMM Sockets:DIMM sockets are where the computer's RAM, (or Random Access Memory), is installed. DIMM stands for Dual Inline Memory Module. The reason it is called "Dual" is because both sides of the memory module have completely separate connections from the other side of the module.
ATX power connectors:ATX power connectors are the specific types of connectors designed to connect a computer's power supply to an ATX motherboard. They are of the Molex type, meaning they are constructed of metal pins laid throughout a nylon matrix.