How it Works: Motherboard & RAM/Memory (What we've learned) - Aiden C

 How It Works!

Compute A Computer's Way Of Sharing Back to the World - Jan 9, 2024

By Aiden C - Compiled From Presentations By Gustavo, Ryan, Kien, and Myself

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 On day 2 of our J-term, everybody in Compute a Computer made presentations on each computer part. This blog is a synopsis of those, explaining to you (dear reader), how each one works! We wanted to help give those interested in our course an idea of what we're doing and what we're learning.

The motherboard is the first part of a computer I'll be talking about in this blog, and it's like the backbone of the computer. It's what every other part of the computer plugs into, and it's how all externals (mouse, keyboard, storage, fans, etc) connect to the CPU, GPU, RAM, and other on-motherboard computer parts. 

 

 The largest part on most motherboards, aside from the cooling, is the CPU slot. It consists of a square slot where the CPU is placed, and usually has around a thousand holes for the pins on the bottom of the CPU to slot in to. If you want to learn more about the CPU, check out the CPU how it works blog!


Next, the RAM (or Memory) is a special type of data storage that is often tens to hundreds of times faster then normal data storage methods, such as hard drives or solid state drives. The CPU uses RAM to store temporary data that it isn't currently using, which is incredibly important when the CPU is performing more then one task, or when a task (or string of code) is non-sequential.

 

RAM consists of sticks of PCB board with storage chips embedded on it. These sticks are placed into slots on the motherboard that are directly next to the CPU, and they directly connect to the CPU. Because of their speed, they are often only in sizes between 2 and 32 gigabytes, as any larger size would simply be too expensive for consumers. 

Generally, modern PCs have around 16 gigabytes of RAM, and this is usually enough for most purposes.


And that's it for me! Check out the other "How It Works" blogs to learn more about what we've learned about computers during this course.

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