Several expansion ports are incorporated into the motherboard which are used to house different adapter cards depending upon their connections or type. These expansion slots are detailed below:
• Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)
The PCI is used to attach various external hardware to the motherboard, these include: Network card, sound card, SATA card. It is important to note that a PCI cannot support a graphics card as the processing power required with recent graphics is too much for the PCI to support. An example of a PCI card is located at figure 5 (Annex A), this particular PCI card has 47 pins with notches which align with the PCI port. A PCI port is available in either 32 bit or 64 bit depending on the size of the port on the motherboard, as a 64 bit PCI port is longer. A 64 bit port will support a 32 bit card however a 32 bit port cannot support a 64 bit PCI card. The sizes and specifications of PCI cards are found in figure 7 (Annex A). The PCI …show more content…
As each device requires a specific port, the keyboard and mouse ports and connectors are colour coded (purple for keyboard, green for mouse) or have symbols printed alongside the ports as to connect them correctly. This port requires a round, 6 pin connector. These ports are not always found as keyboards and mice can utilise a USB connection to function.
• Ethernet (RJ-45) – The Ethernet port is compatible with an RJ-45 connector, see FIGURE, this is used when connecting to a local area network for internet access. The RJ-45 port has 8 pins and varying speeds dependant on the network port type. The port types available are Standard, Fast and Gigabit Ethernet which transmits from a range of speeds from 10Mb/s to
• Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)
The PCI is used to attach various external hardware to the motherboard, these include: Network card, sound card, SATA card. It is important to note that a PCI cannot support a graphics card as the processing power required with recent graphics is too much for the PCI to support. An example of a PCI card is located at figure 5 (Annex A), this particular PCI card has 47 pins with notches which align with the PCI port. A PCI port is available in either 32 bit or 64 bit depending on the size of the port on the motherboard, as a 64 bit PCI port is longer. A 64 bit port will support a 32 bit card however a 32 bit port cannot support a 64 bit PCI card. The sizes and specifications of PCI cards are found in figure 7 (Annex A). The PCI …show more content…
As each device requires a specific port, the keyboard and mouse ports and connectors are colour coded (purple for keyboard, green for mouse) or have symbols printed alongside the ports as to connect them correctly. This port requires a round, 6 pin connector. These ports are not always found as keyboards and mice can utilise a USB connection to function.
• Ethernet (RJ-45) – The Ethernet port is compatible with an RJ-45 connector, see FIGURE, this is used when connecting to a local area network for internet access. The RJ-45 port has 8 pins and varying speeds dependant on the network port type. The port types available are Standard, Fast and Gigabit Ethernet which transmits from a range of speeds from 10Mb/s to