Computer Components Essay

To build a PC you must buy all of the required components otherwise the computer will not work properly or not work at all. Here is a list of all required computer components to make it work: * Motherboard- motherboard is a main component in a computer. It is a printed circuit board and it connects the CPU, RAM, and the cards which generate sound and graphics so they can communicate between each other to make a working computer system. There are many types of motherboards, those ones made more recently than others are ATX motherboards. An ATX motherboards contain the normal I/O (input-output) connectors such as USB, serial ports, PS/2. without mother board there is no way the components will work together. * Case- basically a case holds together all of the components so they don’t fall apart. The type of case depends on what motherboard is used for the computer. Nowadays it is ATX so the cases for these motherboards are ATX cases. * CPU- Central Processing Unit is so called a brain of a computer. The CPU performs processes and runs programs on your computer. It is needed for any action that is done on a computer. The faster the CPU the faster it will do what is required. A processor is made up of cores. The more cores it has the better it is. Nowadays most CPUs have 2 cores and some even 4. That gives a lot of power and speed when executing instructions. * RAM- Random Access Memory is used to temporarily store data which will be lost when a computer is switched off. Ram stores some of operating system data and application data while it is being ran. RAM is essential in computer performance. The more memory there is the more applications can be ran on the computer at the same time. There are many forms of Memory. Nowadays most computers use DDR2 or DDR3 * Graphics Card- Graphics Card is needed to display an images on a monitor. There are AGP, PCI, PCI-E graphics. It just depends on what slot on a motherboard the card will be connected to. New graphics cards are usually made with 512MB or 1024MB of video memory which can generate graphics for all of new games. * Sound Card- sound card basically generates sound for what is ran on a computer, whether it is games, music or films. The leading sound card producer is Creative. * Modem- modem is required in a computer if you want to connect to internet. It converts the digital binary signals to analogue signals so it can be transferred in a network. There are internal modems which are connected to motherboard inside the case and others are external which connect temporarily to USB ports. * FDD- Floppy Disk Drive reads floppy disks. Those are little diskettes which hold up to 1.44 MB. The FDDs are not installe in new computer systems as they are replaced with more spacious USB disks. * HDD- hard disk drive is a storage device. It stores the operating systems and all sorts of Data such as music, word files, films†¦pretty much anything. It does not lose the data as a computer switches off like RAM. It stores the data and lets people access it. The capacity of hard drives is counted in Gigabytes and terabytes. The computer components have to communicate with each other in order to make an output. Motherboard allows them to communicate via BUSes which. They are little cables or printed Circuits which computer components share In order to exchange communication. There are various amounts of data that can be carried by a bus at once. They usually range from 16 to 64 bits and this is called a width of the bus. This is speed of data exchange. Also the speed of data exchange is defined by frequency of a bus. It states how many bits are sent in particular time which is usually per second. For example a CPU working with applications sends binary data, information about a picture and graphics card takes the information and puts pixels in the same way as requested and then sends it to the monitor through a cable to display it on the screen. Another example could be a CPU receiving information from RAM, processing it and sending it further to another component. Installing and configuring a printer (not plug and play) I’ve been asked to present a process of installation of a printer. With CD It is simple to do, just put the CD provided with the device into the CD Drive and go to My Computer.. After that click on the CD Drive location to explore the CD content. When explored click on the setup icon and the setup will start automatically. In the setup window click next. When done next window will come up asking to agree with the license terms. Click yes to proceed to the next stage. In the next window choose how your printer will be connected to the computer and press next. It could be either Via USB, cable or a network. When chosen press next to start the installation. When the installation process reaches 100% press finish to finalize the process And now a printer driver is installed and the printer is ready to use. I was asked to perform another installation of a device driver which in turn will be a DVD-Writer. I was provided a CD with a driver that enables the DVD- Writer to function on a system. First put the CD in the CD drive tray. When done click on my computer Icon to show the icon of the CD put in. Double click on the CD icon with the driver software to explore the content of the disc. When done double click on a Setup icon to start the installation. A window will come up letting you choose the directory of the installation. When chosen click next to proceed to another stage. In the next windows it will ask to agree to license terms. Click â€Å"agree to the license terms† and next button. The installation will start shortly. It will take quite a while to install it and when it gets to 100% press finish button to finalize the installation which will restart the computer to apply the changes to the system. After that the DVD-Writer will start functioning properly. Undertaking a final cleanup of the equipment While cleaning up the equipment health and safety standards must be met. Before taking the computer system apart I put on an anti-static wristband and put the whole computer on the anti-static mat which will prevent any flow of electricity that could damage the system and bring health issues. I make sure that the computer is not plugged in to the electricity. When I am ready I take a screwdriver and open the computer case. I Put it aside and carefully unscrew the metal bit in the middle from the computer which prevents me from manoeuvring when cleaning up. I put it aside and look what needs to be cleaned up. First I take a look at the motherboard and ribbon cables. I take a mini vacuum cleaner with brush designed for computers and carefully hoover the dusty motherboard and cables. When done I do the same with the components and I make sure that there are no liquids inside the computer and that there are no pieces of metal or plastic objects other than the components which could damag e it. Then I look at the components if they are connected to the motherboard and the power supply properly and cables attached in right places. When the cleaning is done I screw the metal bit on to the computer and the case making sure the screws are firmly inside. I’ve done all the activities with special care for my own safety as well as making sure not to damage the computer. I also have to look if any components are damaged or looking dodgy replacing them if true. The outside of the case should be cleaned as well, because if dust starts to build up it can access the inside and damage the components. Take a moist cloth and wipe the surface of the case carefully till it’s clean. Be careful as some cases have few fans, do not wipe the area close to the fans as the dust could easily get wiped inside by accident Selecting upgrades for a computer system There are many components for computer out there. Choosing the best ones will have a major influence on computer’s performance. First important upgrade could be a faster processor which is responsible for the processes running on the computer, how fast they work and how many of them can be ran at the same time. The faster the computer the faster the processes and the operating system as a whole. More RAM memory is a good choice as well when upgrading a computer. It is needed to run the applications and games. Similar to the processor the performance of the programs partially depends on RAM memory and how fast it runs. Graphics card is a very important upgrade as well. The quality of the images displayed on a screen depends on graphics card. The better the graphics card the prettier and smoother the image displayed. It is very important when playing games as it’s allows to play new games showing the best quality textures and images. A Soundcard is an important upgrade as well. Soundcard is responsible for generating the sound. The better it is the better and deeper quality of sound. It is important when playing games, music or in a studio producing music. A bigger Hard Drive is needed to store more data on a computer as well as the bigger the hard drive the faster data transfer. DVD Writer is essential if burning data to DVDs which can be used on other computers. These DVDs can contain any type of data and are quite spacious. After all the main upgrade is a motherboard which must be of good quality to connect every component for a great performance outcome. Task 2 Purpose features and functions of two operating systems Windows XP- It’s an operating system which was created by Microsoft in 2001 and was a great success. This operating system is made for ordinary people performing basic tasks but is capable of much more. Windows XP can run and is compatible with a lot of applications which makes it useful in everyday life. The main purpose of it is multimedia for people who like to enjoy themselves. It offers various applications which are already built in such as Windows Media Player which is able to play music, movies and has a lot of options of multimedia such as library, playlists or something different like basic notepad, paint which allows drawing images and saving them to share. There are also office programs in offer which allow companies to carry out their tasks regarding finances and maintenance of various departments. Windows XP was a best selling OS thanks to its stability and functionality. It is a successor to both Windows ME and Windows 2000 and it has two versions which include Windows XP home edition for home multimedia users and Windows XP professional for more advanced users with office needs. Both of them though are able to run games as well as various applications which provide fun. Windows eXPerience, because that is its full name makes work a lot easier and provides fun. The interface is easy to use and it looks nice and is intuitional and that made it a best selling Microsoft OS. It contains a lot of functions such as drag and drop like any other OS, a Taskbar at the bottom of the desktop which shows which programs are currently running on the system. The user is also able to browse internet and stream media thanks to a built in internet browser called Internet Explorer which is an ambitious name. So far Windows XP was the best system that came out rated by many customers, but that could change with release of Windows 7. Screenshot of a desktop on Windows XP professional- Linux – Linux operating system was designed as open source free software. Its functionality ranges from servers, power-computers to mobile phones and laptops. It is easy to use and its design allows customers to use it in various purposes. It is widely used as an OS for servers and programmers because it contains an interface allowing users to perform High-tech tasks thanks to its stability. The software that comes built in the OS is a free internet browser Mozilla Firefox or OpenOffice.Org which is almost the same as Microsoft Office application pack. Linux has a variety of appearance options which make it neat and good looking. There is a lot of free software compatible with linux which is related to IT field as well as a messenger and email client which makes it very useful to different groups of users but particularly IT people. The variety and accessibility to them is very good which makes linux a popular OS and it is free as well and let to distribute by people. The desktop is pretty much a window desktop and is also very intuitional. Linux OS supports dozens of programming languages which allows writing and coding in many ways. It’s secure, stable. Few of purposes are support of real time applications and fun features such as producing music, photo montage and movie making applications. This operating system was created with thought of people in IT and media creating industry and it does its job very well. Screenshot of desktop on Linux Ubuntu distribution- Compare Windows comparing to Linux is more of a multimedia system. Linux was designed for programming and creating audio or movies. It is more stable than XP and also more secure. Linux has compatibility issues with some programs as it isn’t as popular as XP but they are replaced by free applications made for linux. There are also more device drivers for XP as companies create XP-specific drivers skipping linux. Linux is much lighter than XP and can be installed onto a system on the same partition as an additional application. XP doesn’t come with a lot of useful applications and utilities and they have to be purchased externally which increases the frequency of ads. Linux in turn has a range of applications already installed by default and if not then it is easy to download them for free from reliable and safe websites. Linux can run on slower and weaker computers as well as more advanced hi-spec machines. It is already small enough unlike XP so it can be installed on tablet PCs and it will perform nicely. Linux OS is also better at multi-tasking on any machine, it’s faster and smoother however some applications work slower than XP. If working on XP there are always more security risks than linux as there are less viruses created to infect linux than XP. Using utilities There are number of utilities that support and maintain the performance and security of computer systems. I will undertake few activities using the utilities. First one and one of the main ones are installing an antivirus to prevent infections: To do that I put in the CD provided with antivirus. And go to my computer to see the if the disc is read by the CD-drive. If it is read by the computer I Click on the icon of CD-drive to explore the content of the CD. After that I look for an icon â€Å"Setup† and double click on it to start the installation process. In the main setup window I can see that it is an antivirus installation and it tells me to click â€Å"Next† to start the installation. In the next window it allows me to choose the installation type whether it is local installation or central installation. Central installation allows me to install the antivirus onto the file server and then onto particular computer systems. I choose the local installation to install it on my computer and click next. In the next window I can choose the options antivirus can perform from the beginning. I choose the intercheck client so it provides security for my computer particularly, I click next. And now finally the installation process starts. It takes quite a while to install it. When it gets to the end another window comes up asking if I want to Run the antivirus now or I just want to finish. The installation is completed. Effects of the activities These activities are done to maintain the performance and security of computer systems. Antivirus installed on a computer prevents viruses from infecting the computer as well as any other harmful software. That is a key to a fast working computer and secure. Harmful software like viruses can bring a lot of damage to the operating system causing instability and potential loss of important files. A full system scan is needed after every week of work as many files and webpages were brought on to the system and It needs checking for any harmful units to maintain the security and keep the system fast. Installation of Service Pack 2 patch is needed for new definitions of internet threats as well as performance of the OS. It brings a firewall to the system which protects the computer from harmful software coming in from the internetwork. New performance solutions makes the system faster, more stable and more reliable. Defragmenting hard drives is one of the ways to bring back data integrity lost when doing certain tasks or simply using the system. The files on hard drive get messesd up after time from various causes and need to be put in order to maintain the disk space. Formatting a hard drive