Unit-2 Motherboard &

SMPS

Prepared By: N K Shukla

 Motherboard
• A computer motherboard is nothing but the circuit board or the circuit
which controls the entire functioning of the computer.
• All the components that form your computer are connected to the
computer motherboard.
• The computer processor, which is the most important component of your
computer, is mounted on the computer motherboard.
• All other components like the computer keyboard, computer monitor,
computer mouse, hard drives. etc., are all connected to the computer
motherboard through cables.
• Lets see block diagram of motherboard.
 Motherboard Components
1. Processor
• The processing unit of a computer is the component, which processes all those
zeros and ones.
• The higher the processing speed, the faster the system runs.
• There are three main leading manufacturers of processors: Intel, AMD
(American Micro Devices) and Cyrix.
• The processor is a single integrated circuit (IC) containing sophisticated circuit
that allows it to perform arithmetic functions.
• The processor has two main sections: Bus Interface Unit (BIU) and Execution
Unit (EU).
• The BIU can transfer the data between the microprocessor and other circuit.
• The EU is the part that carries out the instructions.
2.Co-processor
• The Co-Processor is an optional plug-in component on the motherboard.
• The primary advantage of using this chip is the increased execution speed
of program.
• The coprocessor permits a computer to carry out certain operations much
faster.
• A coprocessor can make a computer run 5 to l0 times faster in some
operation.
• The processor works in conjunction with the co-processor when it is
operating in the maximum mode.
• Operations performed by the co-processor may be floating point
arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, encryption or I/O
Interfacing with peripheral devices.
3.Clock generator
• Computers are used clocked logic.
• All the logic elements in the computer
are designed to operate
synchronously.
• They carry out their designed
operations one step at a time and
each circuit makes one step at the
same time.
• This synchronous operation helps the
machine to keep track of every bit
that it can process.
• These timing controls are generated
by clock generator's logic.
4. Bus Sub System
• This has latches to latch the address generated by the CPU on to the address buffer,
transceivers to transfer data between processor and data bus, and bus controller to generate
control signals.
• The bus controller generates signal to control address latch, memory read, memory write, I/O
read and I/O write.

5.Interrupt Controller
• Interrupts are generated to capture the microprocessor's attention and temporarily divert it to
a different process.
• The interrupt controller handles 8 maskable interrupts.
• The interrupt request lines are designated with numbers 2 to 7 with decreasing priority.
• The Non-maskable interrupt (NMI) logic generates the NMI signal. It is generated on
detection of
l) RAM parity error in motherboard
2) RAM parity error in daughter boards which have the RAM as expansion memory
3) Co-Processor error if coprocessor is installed
6. ROM and RAM Logic
• The PC memory is a block where any byte of information is directly available
by calling its address.
• The ROM stores the POST (Power On Self Test) and BIOS.
• The use of dynamic RAM in PC needs refreshing the memory.
• The DMA channel 0 is used for it.
7. Direct Memory Access Controller (DMA Controller-8237)
• To speed up the system performance the main processor is to be relieved
from time consuming jobs like moving blocks of memory (bulk data) between
main memory and I/O devices.
• The DMA controller handles these tasks separately.
• Once it receives instructions from the CPU the DMA takes the command and
does all the memory transfer operations.
8.Timer/counter Logic ( Programmable Interval timer 8253)
• There are main three timers on motherboard.
1) Time 0 : Used to interrupt the processor at the rate of 18.2 clock cycle per
second to maintain the system time and date
2) Time 1: Used to generate DMA request signals for performing refresh
cycles at every 15 microseconds.
3) Time 2: Used to generate various tones by the speaker.

9. Peripheral Interface Logic (PPI-8255A)

• The programmable peripheral interface (PPI) device connects the peripheral devices to the
personal computer system.
• It is design to implement parallel I/o ports without the additional circuit.
• The PPI is very flexible parallel interface that is software controlled.
• Earlier PC's had the keyboard connected to PPI.
• Recent models have a separate microcontroller such as 8042 for connecting mouse and
keyboard with computer system.
 Different types of Mother board.
1. Non-Integrated Motherboards
• Non-integrated Motherboards have assemblies such as the I/O port
connectors (serial
• and parallel ports), hard drive connectors, floppy controllers and connectors,
joystick connections etc. installed as expansion boards.
• This takes up one or more of the motherboard's expansion slots and reduces
the amount of free space inside the computer case.
• Most of the older motherboards were Non-Integrated.
• Some of the later system boards began to integrate some of these
assemblies right onto the circuit board.
2. Integrated Motherboards
• Integrated Motherboards have assemblies that are otherwise installed as expansion boards,
integrated or built right onto the board.
• The serial and parallel ports, the IDE and floppy drive, and joystick all connect directly to the
motherboard.
• This is now standard on any latest model 486 and above.
• It tends to free up some space inside the case and allows for better accessibility and airflow.
• The systems are cheaper to produce because there's less material involved, less installation and
testing can all be done at the same time.
• They are more expensive to repair because if the problem is with a controller failure or broken
pin it means a new motherboard should be needed.

3. Embedded Motherboard

• In an effort to reduce the cost (and size) of a computer system even more, manufacturers began
integrating (or embedding) technologies such as video, sound, networking and modems right
onto the system board.
• This dramatically increases the cost of the main board but reduces the cost of the overall
system.
Motherboard Types/Form Factors
(AT, Baby AT, ATX, LPX, NLX, BTX)
• The motherboard is a main printed circuit board used to connect all of
the parts of a computer together.
• The CPU, memory, hard drives, optical drives, video card, sound card
and other ports and expansion cards all connect to the motherboard
directly or via cables.
 Chipsets
• The specialized chips on a computer's motherboard or expansion card are called chipset.
• The chip sets are a bunch of intelligent controller chips.
• It controls communications between the processor and external devices. Generally chipset contain more
than one chip into single chip.
• The chipset manufacturers are generally independent from the manufacturer of the motherboard.
• Current manufacturers of chipsets for PC-compatible motherboard include NVIDIA, AMD, VIA Technologies,
Sis, Intel, Broadcom etc.
• Some server manufacturers also develop custom chipsets for their products.
• In home computers game consoles and arcade game hardware chipset was used for the custom audio and
graphics chips.
• Most of the manufacturer are include in their chipsets are floppy disk control circuitry, a connector for an
embedded controller (IDE) hard disk, input/output ports like parallel port, serial port, USB ports etc,
keyboard, mouse and games ports.
• Some chipset manufacturers are provide video (VGA) circuitry into their products as well.
• Intel i7 chipset Advantages:
• Affordable prices for being a quad-core
• 45nm node technology allows for efficient cooling and over clocking.
• IMC or integrated memory controller lets the chip connect directly to
memory
• Four cores allows for handling software that requires lots of
computations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-QFtrIxCG0
 North Bridge & South Bridge
• North Bridge:
• A Northbridge or host bridge is a microchip on some PC motherboards and is connected
directly to the CPU (unlike the Southbridge) and thus responsible for tasks that require
the highest performance.
• The Northbridge is usually paired with a Southbridge, also known as I/O controller hub.
• In systems where they are included, these two chips manage communications between
the CPU and other parts of the motherboard, and constitute the core logic chipset of
the PC motherboard.
• The Northbridge typically handles communications among the CPU. in some cases RAM,
and AGP video cards, and the Southbridge.
• Some Northbridge also contain integrated video controllers, also known as Graphics and
Memory
• Controller Hub (GMCH) in Intel system.
• Because different processors and RAM require different signaling, a given Northbridge
will typically work with only one or two classes of CPU’s and generally only one type of
• Diagram :

South Bridge:
• The South Bridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a personal computer (PC)
motherboard, the other being the North Bridge.
• The South Bridge typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a North
Bridge/South Bridge chipset computer architecture.
• The South Bridge can usually be distinguished from the North Bridge by not being directly connected
to the CPU rather the North Bridge ties the South Bridge to the CPU.
• Through the use of controller integrated channel circuitry, the North Bridge can directly link signals
from the I/O units to the CPU for data control and access.
• A south bridge chipset handles all of a computer's I/O functions such as USB, audio, serial, the system
BIOS, the ISA bus, the interrupt controller and the IDE channels.
 Bus slots
• Expansion of Buses
• Expansion buses connect devices to the motherboard using the motherboard's data bus.
• They allow the flow of data between internal and external devices that make up the computer system.
• Early computers moved data between devices and the processor at about the same rate as the processor.
• As processor speeds increased the movement of data through the bus became a bottleneck.
• Therefore, the design capability of the buses needed to evolve, too.
• Designers divided the external data bus into two parts:
1. System bus: This supports the CPU. RAM. And other motherboard components and runs at
speeds that support the CPU.
2. Expansion bus: This supports any add-on devices by means of the expansion slots and runs at a
steady rate, based on the specific bus design.
 Bus organization & Bus standards
• Bus standards are necessary to connect external peripherals to the system and they are work on proper clock
cycle speed.
• Bus Width
• A bus is a channel over which information flows.
• The wider the bus the more information can flow over the channel.
• For example a wider highway can carry more cars than a narrow one.
• Bus speed
• The speed of the bus reflects how many bits of information can be sent across each wire per second.
• This would be analogous to how fast the car is driving on our analogical highway.
• Most buses transmit one bit of data per line, per clock cycle, although newer high performance buses like AGP
may actually move two bits of data per clock cycle, doubling performance.
• Bus Bandwidth
• Bandwidth also called throughput, refers to the total amount of data that can theoretically be transferred on the
bus in a given unit of time.
• Using the highway analogy, if the bus width is the number of lanes, and the bus speed is how fast the cars are
driving, and then the bandwidth is the product of these two and reflects the amount of traffic that the channel
can convey per second.
• Bus Interfacing
• On a system that has multiple buses, circuitry must be provided by the
chipset to connect the buses and allow devices on one talk to devices on the
other.
• This device is called a “bridge”, the same name used to refer to a piece of
networking hardware that connects two dissimilar networks.
• Bus Mastering
• On the higher-bandwidth buses, a great deal of information is flowing
through the channel every second. Processor is required to control the
transfer of this information.
• The processor is a “middleman” and it is far more efficient to “cut out” the
middleman and perform the transfer directly.
• It is done by having capable devices take control of the bus and do the work
themselves; devices that can do this are called bus masters.
 BUS Organization

• A bus is a collection of wires, thorough which data is transmitted from one part of a
computer to another.
• When used in reference to personal computers, the term bus usually refers to internal bus.
• This is a bus that connects all the internal computer components to the CPU and the main
memory.
• There is also an expansion bus that enables expansion boards to access the CPU and
memory.
• Most modern PC’s have at least four buses.
• The Processor bus This is the highest level bus that the chipset uses to send
information to and from the processor.
• The Cache Bus Higher level architectures, such as those used by the Pentium Pro
and Pentium II employ a dedicated bus for accessing the system cache.
• This is sometime called a backside bus.
• The Memory Bus This is a second level system bus that connects the memory
subsystem to the chipset and the processor. In some systems, the processor and the
memory buses are the same thing.
• The Local IO Bus This is a high speed input/output bus used for connecting
performance critical peripherals to the memory, chipset and processor. For
example, video cards, disk storage devices, high speed network interfaces generally
use a bus of this sort.
• The two most common local IO buses are VESA local bus and PCI bus.
• The Standard IO Bus This bus is used for slower peripherals like mice, modems,
regular sound cards, low speed networking. It is also compatible with older devices.
Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) Bus
• ISA stands for Industry Standard Architecture which is the most common bus in the PC
world.
• The ISA bus is still stay in the newest computers. Despite the fact that it is largely
unchanged since it was expanded to 16 bits.
• The ISA bus eventually became a narrow to performance and was enlarge with additional
high- speed buses.
• There are still many devices for which the ISA's speed is more than sufficient (an example
of standard moderns).
• The original ISA bus on the IBM PC was 8 bits wide, reflecting the 8 bit data width of the Intel
8088 processor's system bus, and ran at 4.77 MHz.
• With the speed of the first 8088s. The IBM AT was introduced which was use the Intel 80286.
• The ISA bus provides reasonable throughput for low-bandwidth devices and virtually assures
compatibility with almost every PC on the market.
• The ISA bus has divided in two units, internal unit and external unit, which are work with the
other devices.
• The internal ISA bus: This is used on the simple ports, like keyboard, diskette drive serial and
parallel ports.
• The External expansion bus: This can be connected with l6 bit ISA adapters.
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCl) Local Bus

• The most popular local I/O bus, the Peripheral Component Interconnect
(PCI) bus was developed by Intel and introduced in 1993.
• It is geared specifically to fifth and sixth generation systems, although the
latest generation 486 motherboards use PCI as well.
• Data width=32 bit
• Speed=33 Mhz
• Throughput= 264 MB/sec
• The device installed on PCI slots are: wifi adapter, TV tuner, satellite receiver
and various controller.
• PCI Bus performance-
• The PCI bus provides superior performance to the VESA local bus. PCI is the highest performance than
general I/O bus currently used into PCs. This is clue to several factors:
1. Burst Mode: The PCI bus can transfer information in a burst mode.
2. Bus Mastering: PCI supports full bus mastering. which leads to improved performance.
3. High Bandwidth Options: The PCI bus specification version 2.1 calls for expandability to 64 bits
and 66 MHz speed; if implemented this would quadruple bandwidth over the current design.
• PCI Expansion Slots- The PCI bus offers more expansion slots than most VLB implementations. Most PCI
systems support 3 or 4 PCI slots. Also, the PCI bus offers a great variety of expansion cards compared to VLB.
The most commonly found cards are video cards, high-speed networking cards. Hard disk drives are also on
the PCI bus but are normally connected directly to the motherboard on a PCI system.
• PCI Internal Interrupts- The PCI bus uses its own internal interrupt system for dealing with requests from
the cards on the bus.
• PCI Plug and Play- PCI systems were the first to popularize the use of Plug and Play. The PCI bus is part of the
Plug and Play standard developed by Intel with co-operation from Microsoft and many other companies. The
PCI chipset circuitry handles the identification of cards and works with the operating system and BIOS to
automatically set resource allocations for compatible peripheral cards.
Some detailed specifications are presented in
the table below:
Type Working Topology Bus Type Clock Speed Transmission Speed

32-bit: 133MB/s,
32-bit 33MHz 266MB/s
PCI Parallel transmission
64-bit 66MHz 64-bit: 266MB/s,
533MB/s

66MHz
533MB/s;
100MHz
PCI-X Parallel transmission 64-bit 800MB/s;
133MHz
1066MB/s
(Up to 533MHz)

PCI-E
Serial transmission 8-bit 2.5GHz 4GB/s
(PCIe 1.0 8x version)
 Accelerated Graphics Port
• In the early days of PCI, the major market for that technology was the high performance display
adapter.
• Today, the PCI market includes NICs, sound cards, Ultra Direct Memory Access (UDMA) controllers,
and DVD (digital video disc) interfaces.
• The variety of devices posed a problem for display-card designers: Having more cards on a single
bus slowed down the performance, just when the increasing popularity of 24-bit graphics and 3D
rendering called for greater demands on the display system.
• The AGP removes all the display data traffic from the PCI bus and gives that traffic its own pipe.
• It also provides a direct path to the system memory for handling graphics. This procedure is
referred to as Direct Memory Execute (DIME).
• Data width=32 bit
• Speed=66 Mhz and above
• Throughput= 528 MB/sec
• Directly connected to motherboard
• Design to provide fast access to video
• AGP connectors are found only on Pentium Il-based and later computers or on similar CPUs from
non-Intel vendors.
 AGP PCI

PCI is a bus
AGP is a port
PCI bus normally has a clock speed of 66
AGP normally has a clock speed of 33 MHz MHz

AGP normally has a transfer PCI normally has a transfer rate of 132
rate of 2, 133 MB/s MB/s
PCI has a local memory and relies solely
AGP has a non local memory and is able to
on the memory of memory directly.
access the system
the video card.

AGP receives information simultaneously which PCI receives information in “groups”

makes the graphics quicker and smoother. instead of all at once.
 Universal Serial Bus

• The newest addition to the general PC bus collection, the USB connects external peripherals
such as mouse devices, printers, modems, keyboards, joysticks, scanners, And digital cameras to
the computer.
• The USB port is a thin slot, most new motherboards offer two located near the keyboard.
• They can also be provided through an expansion card.
• USB supports isochronous (time-dependent) and asynchronous (intermittent) data transfers.
• Isochronous connections transfer data at a guaranteed fixed rate of delivery.
• This is required for more demanding multimedia applications and devices.
• ✓Data width = 1 bit
• ✓Speed = 3 MHz
• ✓Throughput:
• ✓USB 1.1 = 12 MB/sec
• ✓USB 2.0 = 60 MB/sec
• ✓USB 3.0 = 640 MB/sec
• USB is hot swappable. Hot swappable means that devices can be added
and removed easily while the computer is still running without having to
reboot.
• USB devices may be daisy chained. 127 devices can be connected through
a single USB Port.
Personal Computer Memory Card Industry Association (PC Card)
• The Personal Computer Memory Card Industry Association was founded to
provide a standard bus for laptop computers. So it is basically used in the
small computers.
• Small Computer System Interface:
• Short for Small Computer System Interface, a parallel interface standard used
by Apple Macintosh computers, PC's and Unix systems for attaching
peripheral devices to a computer.
 VESA Local Bus (VLB)

• VESA stands for the Video Electronics Standards Association, a standards

group that was formed to address video-related issues in personal
computers.
• This is the first local bus to gain popularity.
• The VESA local bus (also called VL-Bus or VLB for short) was introduced in
1992.
• The major reason for the development of VESA or VLB was to improve
video performance in PCs.
• It is an extension of the ISA bus, an ISA card can be used in a VLB slot.
• There were also several key problems with the VLB implementation.
(1) The design was strongly based on the 486 processor. And
adapting it to the Pentium caused a host of compatibility and other
problems.
(2) The bus itself was tricky electrically; for example, the number of
cards that could be used on the bus was low (often only two or
even one), and occasionally there could be timing problems on the bus
when more than one card was used.
(3) The bus did not support bus mastering properly since there was
no good arbitration scheme, and did not support Plug and Play.
IEEB 1394 FireWire High-Performance Serial Interface.
• IEEE 1394, known also by its Apple trade name of FireWire. While
connecting external peripheral, IEEE 1394 has been a possible
replacement of SCSI. This high-speed serial interface allows up to 62
devices on a chain, at data transfer rates of up to 50 MB per second.

• This new interface offers several advantages: a hot swap capability (the
ability to add and remove components while the machine is running),
small and inexpensive connectors, and a simple cable design.

• Right now, few devices support1394, but it is seen as a viable method

for connecting multimedia devices like camcorders and other consumer
electronic devices to PCs.
 MCA BUS
• Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) is a parallel bus used in IBM computers from
the 1980s to the mid-1990s. It was used in the Personal System/2 (PS/2) line of
computers, as well as other IBM products.

• What it did:
• MCA was a 16- or 32-bit bus that replaced the ISA bus in IBM computers.
• It was faster than the ISA bus, running at 10 MHz.
• MCA supported bus mastering, which placed a mini-processor on each expansion
card.
• MCA automatically configured adapter cards, so users didn't need to adjust
jumpers.
• Plug-in cards were software configurable, so users needed to do minimal
intervention to configure them.

• Why it's obsolete:

• IBM charged other manufacturers royalties to use the MCA technology.
• The PCI bus architecture eventually replaced MCA.
 VESA Local Bus
• The VESA Local Bus (VL-bus) was a 32-bit expansion bus used in IBM-
compatible personal computers with 486 CPUs. It was created by the Video
Electronics Standards Association (VESA).
How it worked
• The VL-bus was a high-speed path between the CPU and peripherals like video
and disk
• It was used alongside the ISA bus, which was more dominant at the time
• The VL-bus provided a wider bandwidth for peripheral data transfer than the
ISA bus
• The VL-bus was a short-lived expansion bus

Characteristics
• The VL-bus ran at speeds up to 40 MHz
• The motherboard could have up to three VL-bus slots
• VLB connectors were usually inline with ISA connectors

Why it was important

• The VL-bus was popular in the early 1990s
EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture)

• An evolution of ISA and (theoretically) backward

compatible with it, including the speed (8 MHz), so the
increased data throughput is mainly due to the bus
doubling in size-but you must use EISA expansion cards.
• It has its own DMA arrangements, which can use the
complete address space.
• On advantage of EISA (and Micro Channel) is the ease of
setting up expansion cards-plus them in and run the
configuration software which will automatically detect
their settings.
SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supply)
• There are two types of power supply
• 1) Linear Power Supply 2) Switch Mode Power Supply
• Computer power supply units (PSU) deliver the power to the PC hardware
via a number of cables with connectors.
• Most of today's motherboards supply their CPU with a separate 12 volt
cable.
SMPS block diagram & working
Major Components of SMPS:
• The major components that constitute SMPS are as follows:
1.Input rectifier and Filter (Diode rectifier and capacitor filter)
2.High-frequency switch (Power transistor or MOSFET)
3.Power transformer
4.Output rectifier and Filter (Diode rectifier and capacitor filter)
5.Control circuit (comparator and pulse width modulator)
•1. Input rectifier
• This is the primary stage of the converter. The rectifier and filter circuit is used to
convert AC supply into DC voltage.
• But this DC output voltage is unregulated. It has many variations as the circuit
inside is only used to convert and not process it accurately.
• This unregulated DC voltage is then given to a high-frequency converter
consisting of switching devices.
• 2. High Frequency Switch (Inverter)
• This is the main heart of SMPS. Because the incoming DC voltage is unregulated
and not processed properly, it cannot be directly fed to the output circuit.
• So, the processing task is done by power-electronic switching devices. Power
transistor, MOSFET, diac, triac, etc. are employed here which switches on and off
according to variations.
• These switching devices have very low resistance and they are capable of resisting
high currents. They thus create high frequency pulsating DC signal; which is
processed properly and less variable.
• 3. Power Transformer
• The high-frequency DC output is fed to the power transformer for step-down
reduction.
• The high voltage DC output is converted into a low voltage DC output.

• 4. Output Rectifier and Filter

• The rectified output DC is then filtered using the filter section consisting
of inductors and capacitors.
• The output from the transformer is again fed to the rectifier and filter circuit to get a
constant and steady DC output voltage.
• Basically, this filter smoothens the DC output.
• 5. Control Circuit
• The control circuitry present here acts as the feedback circuit for the complete unit.
This involves a comparator along with a pulse width modulator (PWM). The dc
output from the rectifier and filter is fed to the control circuit where the error
amplifier which acts as a comparator, compares the obtained dc voltage with the
reference value.
• if the dc output is greater than the reference value then the chopping frequency is
to be decreased. The decrease in chopping frequency will reduce the output power
and so the dc output voltage. However, if the dc output is less than the reference
value then the chopping frequency is increased. When chopping frequency is
raised then the dc output voltage will get increased.
• The pulse width modulator in the above circuit is responsible for generating a
fixed frequency pulse width modulated waveform whose duty cycle controls the
chopping frequency.
• Advantages
1.It is highly efficient than linear power supplies. Typically, the efficiency of
SMPS lies between 60% – 95%.
2.Due to the high-frequency operation of the device, the overall size is
small and less bulky. Thus, is compact.
3.It is inexpensive because heat dissipation is less.
4.The obtained output voltage can be more or less than the supply input.
• Disadvantages
1.The transient spike generation due to switching action is one of the
major issues. This may lead to cause RF interference thus, isolation is
mandatory.
2.The circuit is complex. Also, voltage regulation (controlling) is tricky.
3.Proper filtration is necessary to deal with noise and spikes.
• Applications of SMPS
• The devices invented under the latest technologies require a highly
efficient power supply which is offered by SMPS.
• Thus, it finds applications in various power amplifiers, personal
computers, security and railway systems, television sets, motor drives,
etc.
SMPS Pin assignments
• 20 + 4 Pin ATX / Motherboard
Connector
• This is the main ATX connector
that supplies power to your
motherboard and other
components like RAM, Low-end
graphics card, PCI cards that are
connected to your motherboard.
Earlier motherboards have 20
pin sockets only but now
modern-day motherboards
require 24-pin power connectors.
• Therefore nowadays all the
SMPS comes with 24 pin
detachable connector (20 + 4)
that can be split into 20 pin and
4 pin cables.
• CPU 4 + 4 Pin Connector
• This is the 12 Volt connector that supplies power to your CPU or
Processor.
• Some motherboards have 4 pins 12V CPU socket and some have
8 pins 12V socket, therefore most of the good power supplies
come with 8-pin (4 + 4) detachable connectors which can be
split into two 4 pin connectors.
• SATA Power Connector
• This power connector is used to power up SATA devices that
mostly include Hard Disks, DVD Writers / Drives.
• Floppy 4 Pin Connector
• This 4 pin power connector is used to power floppy drives.
Floppy Drives are not being used commonly, but in some cases
they can prove very useful.
• Peripheral 4 Pin Molex Connector
• Peripheral 4 Pin Molex Connector is used to provide power to IDE
devices and other peripherals like Fans, case lights etc. You can also
use this Molex 4 pin connector to power other devices like SATA
devices, Graphics cards etc. by the use of converters or adapters
e.g. Molex to SATA power connector etc.
• PCI-e 6 Pin / PCI-e 8 Pin Connector
• PCI-e 6 Pin or PCI-e 6+2 Pin are 12 Volt Connectors that are used to
provide power to mid to high range graphics cards that require extra
amount of power for their working. Budget and low-end graphics
cards do not need them as they draw their power from the
motherboard PCI-Express x16 slot only. Older mid to high-end
graphics card comes with PCI-e 6 Pin slot while the newer high-end
graphics comes with PCI-e 8 Pin slot. The new PCI Express 8 Pin
cable can provide a maximum of 150 Watts power which is double
that of the PCI Express 6 Pin cable i.e. 75 Watts.