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The Components Involved In a PC System

Throughout this blog, I will outline the components involved in building a PC system explaining there various functions and the technical relationship between them. Not only this, but I will explain how to install each component. Then lastly I will also look at various operating systems and their differed purposes.

The Bare Essentials

• CPU
• Heatsink and fan
• RAM (memory)
• Motherboard
• Graphics card
• Monitor
• Hard Drive
• Keyboard
• CD/DVD-Drive
• Case
• IDE cable's (normally with motherboard)
• Power cable (normally with case)

These are the bare essentials in which to build a functional PC system, now I will describe what each of the components contribute to the system.

CPU (Central Processing Unit)

The CPU or processor is basically the ‘brain’ of a computer, it executes instructions for the system and transports data. It is regarded as the most important element of a computer, as without it there would be no communication between hardware components, and no list of sequenced instructions for the system to follow, and therefore function.

The CPU is located on the motherboard inside a small chip known as a microprocessor. It plugs directly into a CPU socket that is located on the motherboard. Certain motherboards only support certain CPU’s, so when installing/upgrading it is essential to check the manufacturer specifications of both pieces of hardware.

There are two main components of the CPU:

The Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) – This performs basic arithmetic and logical operations (calculations).

The Control Unit (CU) – This extracts instructions from memory (RAM), decodes and then executes them. It can interact with the ALU when necessary.



This is a standard CPU Chipset



Modern CPU’s sometimes have a small fan and heat sink that are attached, this is to try to aid heat dissipation to keep the CPU running efficiently. The CPU interacts with the system via the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) which is where it can execute its set language instructions for each component in the system. It receives these instructions from the device driver that is installed in order to allow communication between a device and a computer system. The CPU chipset has a two north and south bridges. The north bridge controller interacts with the Hard disk, and the south bridge performs lower speed tasks like interacting with USB and I/O components.

Heat sink & Fan

A heat sink is a component used in which to transfer heat from within a solid state to an air or liquid state in an attempt to reduce the heat that is being applied directly to the solid component. These are often found on a motherboard attached to a modern CPU to keep it running in a cool and efficient manner. They often come with a fan also, which extracts cool air from outside the computer case and circulates around the PC in an additional attempt to aid cooling.

How to install/upgrade the CPU, heat sink & fan

1.)     Locate the CPU socket that is on the motherboard, it will appear a small square socket with numerous pinholes in it. Lift the safety catch to the side of the socket to allow the CPU to be plugged into it.

2.)     To mount the CPU, align the CPU pins to the CPU pinholes and apply pressure until the CPU clicks into place. Then push the safety catch lever back down to lock the CPU into place.

3.)     Often it is recommended to use some form of thermal compound when installing the CPU, this is applied between the CPU and the heat sink in an effort to reduce the CPU’s temperature. A thermal paste can be used for this, and is available to purchase from most computing stores.

4.)     Before installing a heat sink it is important to check whether or not a cooling fan has to be attached to the heat sink before the heat sink is attached to the CPU, you will be notified of this in the manufacturer booklet. When you’re ready to mount the heat sink, most come with small levers in which to clamp the heat sink directly above the CPU, although some require a screw fitting. You will be instructed of the exact installation procedure in the manufacturer booklet.

5.)     Once your CPU, heat sink and fan are mounted you need to locate the CPU fan header on the motherboard, and connect the heat sink power cable to the header. Again it is essential that you read your manufacturer documentation to ensure the correct fitting.               

6.)     Lastly, you need to configure the BIOS which will detect the type and speed of the newly installed CPU, again check the manufacturer documentation for the exact procedure in which to follow.



This is an example of a heatsink and fan.





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Software Utilities

Computing utility software is used to analyse, configure and maintain the main infrastructure to a computer system. Rather than focusing on application tasks and management, utility software is associated more with the operational side of the system and is designed to manage hardware, operating systems, driver software and data storage for example. Because of this, utility software is often quite technical to manually configure.

Throughout this blog i will discuss various software utilities, and highlight their uses. I will discuss virus protection software, clean up tools and drive formatting.

Virus Protection

Anti-virus utility software is designed for the prevention, detection and removal of malicious software such as trojans, worms, spyware, adware etc.

Anti-virus software detects malicious software by scanning executable code on the system that is known to be of a malicious nature, or is similiar to pre-existing malicious code. Some anti-virus software also runs potential malicious software in a 'sandbox' area of the system to see if the software intends to run any malicious actions, if it does then the anti-virus utility can remove the malicious software before it is implemented into the system.

There are evidently large benefits to the use of anti-virus utility software, such as the protection it offers to a computer system and the general maintenance that some anti-virus software offers e.g pop up blockers, registry cleaning etc.

Although there are also some drawbacks, firstly anti-virus software and the RAM in which it uses maintaining a system can cause a system's performance to drop. Also the prompts and actions in which it poses to the user can often be quite technical, resulting in malicious attack if the user fails to do what is necessary to prevent it.

Common anti-virus developers are Norton, Mcafee, AVG etc.





This is a sample of an anti-virus utility. You can see that it offers the user the ability to scan their system, configure privacy settings, track system activity and view a basic overview on how well the system is protected.

Clean up Tools

Disk Cleaner

A disk cleanup tool is a software utility designed to free up hard disk space on a system. It works by analyzing and detecting files that are no longer used by the system, and then removes them. It also prompts the user with files that may be in use, but are recommended for removal these are usually files that lack in importance, but are relatively large in size (e.g temp files).

Many disk clean up utilities also offer the user the ability to compress rarely used files which improves disk space, and prioritise frequently used files to maintain quick file access times.

Common areas in which disk clean up tools target are:

• Temp folders
• Downloaded program files
• Recycle Bin
• Unused applications & components
• Log files

The most used clean-up tool is 'Disk Cleanup', which is a Windows utility that comes pre-installed with Windows software. Although other alternatives exist such as CCleaner, Red Button etc.

Registry Cleaner

A registry cleaner utility is designed to remove unwanted/redundant data from a system's registry in an attempt to improve the system's overall functionality. It works by scanning the registry, and repairing or deleting unnecessary values that are often left from uninstall failures, previous malware operations etc.

The clear advantage to registry cleaners is that due the registry's complexity, being able to maintain it manually would be virtually impossible. So a registry cleaner is essential in maintaining a functional registry.

Although registry cleaners have been known to pose some disdvantages, some experts argue that many registry cleaners classify minor detected errors as being 'critical' and therefore delete vital registry data, which can lead to the system crashing, booting failure and other general errors. This type of utility is also popular among malicious software developers, as it gains access to the system's registry where all the system's configuration settings are stored.

Registry cleaner developers include MAXpc, FixCleaner and Registry Booster.

  

Drive Formatting

Disk formatting is a utility that is built to prepare hard disk drives for an operating system installation, and can completely clean a hard disk of all data so its back to its manufactured state.

Formatting a disk works in three steps:

1. Low-level formatting - Low level formatting is the first step, the utility makes surface markers on the disk in which to indicate the start of a recoding block equipped with the foundation information, for the disk to be able to read/write data. This returns the disk to its initial state (factory settings).
2. Partitioning - Partioning then occurs, and this is to structure the disk data into various areas to raise the disk efficiency. Defective files and sectors are also detected in this stage.
3. High-level formatting - High level formatting is where the utility restores the disk's logical file system, and allows the disk to be detected and accessed. This may occur when installing the operating system. 

Disk formatting is a utility that is pre-installed with all Windows systems, and can simply be executed by the FORMAT command. It works by clearing the FAT entries by changing them 0x00, the root directory is then cleared by changing all values to 0x00 and finally all clusters are tested to ensure disk is fully operational.

Performance

A software utility's primary goal is to improve the overall performance of a computer system, it does this by keeping the system's logical structure maintained and organised. Software utilities can scan a computer system and delete unwanted and corrupt files, re-organise files and other general maintanance tasks in which to ensure that a system is running at its optimum performance level.