ICT

Computer Hardware, Parts and Functions of Computer Hardware

len Alfred Ajibola - 07th February, 2019 @ 10:39 AM

Topics in ICT

Introduction to routers in networking Wired router and wireless router explained What are core routers in networking? Virtual routers explained with its configuration Edge router explained with its types Domain Name System explained Types of computer network Functions of a router Computer scheme of work, SS1, First Term Computer scheme of work, SS1, Second Term Computer scheme of work, SS1, Third Term Introduction to computer networks Types of DNS server Open Systems Interconnect: Layers of the OSI Model Internet of Things (IoT), How IoT works, its advantages and challenges How to consume less data on android phone Best programming languages to learn The internet and world wide web explained Computer Hardware, Parts and Functions of Computer Hardware


Academic Questions in ICT

Please click here to see all Questions and Answers

DNS belongs to layer _____ of the Open System Interconnect (OSI) model of networking.

  • A. One

  • B. Two

  • C. Three

  • D. Four

  • E. Five

  • F. Six

  • G. Seven

Which of the following DNS servers receive queries directly from computers, phones and other client devices?

  • A. Root Nameserver

  • B. Top Level Domain (TLD) Nameserver

  • C. Bottom Level Domain (BLD) Nameserver

  • D. Authoritative Nameserver

  • E. Direct Nameserver

  • F. Recursive DNS Server

The uppermost layer of the Open System Interconnect (OSI) model of networking is the _____ layer.

  • A. Physical

  • B. Application

  • C. Network

  • D. Transport

  • E. Data Link

  • F. Presentation

Concerning the internet of things, which of the following statement is incorrect?

  • A. Humans will become connected to the internet through the internet of things

  • B. It refers to the billions of physical devices that will be connected to the internet

  • C. Big data is associated with the internet of things

  • D. Presently, we have more humans living on earth that things connected to the internet

  • E. China, North America and Europe accounts for over two thirds of internet connected things

  • F. The ultimate goal of the Internet of things will be made a reality through IPv6

What is the first step towards disabling automatic image download on WhatsApp?

  • A. Click on the three dots on the top right hand corner

  • B. Click on the WhatsApp logo

  • C. Click on the settings icon on the top right corner

  • D. Click on the settings icon located on the to top-center of the app

  • E. Click directly on the storage and data icon located on the top right corner

  • F. Click on the mobile data usage icon located on the top right corner

The followings are ways to conserve data on android phones except _____.

  • A. Turning on data saving mode

  • B. Activating background apps

  • C. Use of Wi-Fi to update apps

  • D. Disable automatic image download on WhatsApp

  • E. Watch low resolution videos on youtube

  • F. Utilizing a reputable data saving app on google playstore

Twitter was launched in _____.

  • A. 2003

  • B. 2004

  • C. 2005

  • D. 2006

  • E. 2007

  • F. 2008

Due to the limitation of the Internet Protocol version 4 address, _____ was created.

  • A. IPv5

  • B. IPv6

  • C. IPv7

  • D. IPv8

  • E. IPv9

  • F. IPv10



What is Computer Hardware?


Have you seen a keyboard before? What about a monitor? If yes, then you already know something about computer hardware.

Computer hardware is the collection of physical parts of a computer system.

Physical parts of a computer are those parts that you can see and touch. It may also be referred to as the equipment of the computer.

When the computer case is opened (with a screwdriver), one would see the different hardware components inside of it. It's important to state that some other hardware components are present outside the computer case.

Note: Hardware components seen outside the computer case are called peripherals. The peripherals are grouped into the following:

  1. Input devices: They provide information to the computer.

  2. Output devices: Brings out information from the computer.

  3. Storage devices: They store information or data.

 

Below are examples of some peripherals:

  • Keyboard (input)

  • Monitor (output)

  • Mouse (input)

  • Webcam (input)

  • Touch Pad (input)

  • Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drive or memory card (storage)

  • Hard disc drive (storage)

  • Stylus (input)

  • Joystick(input)

  • Printer (output)

  • Speaker (output)

  • Headphones (output)

 

Below are hardware components seen inside the computer case:

  • Motherboard

  • Central Processing Unit (CPU)

  • Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

  • Power supply Unit (PSU)

  • Northbridge

  • Southbridge

  • Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slots

  • Network Interface Card (NIC)

  • Random Access Memory (RAM)

  • Ventilation fans

  • Heat sink

  • Hard Disc Drive (external present)
  • Solid State Drive (SSD)

  • CMOS battery

  • Optical Disc Drives (external present)

  • USB port, PS2 port, Ethernet port and other ports

  • Expansion Ports / Slots

Please read on the router (a networking device) here.

 

The motherboard houses the different hardware component inside the computer. Some of these includes the CPU, GPU, RAM, heat sink, fan, CMOS battery, and expansion slots and ports.

The motherboard also provides the electrical connections through which other components of the computer system communicate.

Below is a labeled diagram of a the computer motherboard with it's hardware components.

The Computer Motherboard - Len Academy
The Computer Motherboard

 

The Central Processing Unit (CPU) or simply processor is considered to be the brain of the computer. It processes all information and execute computer programs. It's clock speed is measured in gigahertz (GHz).

  • Computer programs include the various applications installed on your computer system; for instance, Microsoft Office, Google chrome web browser and so on.
  • Think of clock speed as the speed at which the CPU processes information. You may wish to check out the clock speed of a computer before purchasing it.

You can read on the internet of things (IoT) here.

 

The Random Access Memory (RAM) is always located in the memory slots of the motherboard.

Functionally, the RAM temporarily store programs that are currently running on the computer and it makes that data immediately accessible. For instance; when you multi-task with two or more applications (apps), the RAM will temporarily and simultaneously store both data which can be accessed in a random order.

The size of RAM is measured mainly in gigabytes (GB) or megabytes (MB). The larger its size, the more applications or programs you can run simultaneously (multi-task).

The RAM is a volatile memory. This means that it will lose all it's information as soon as the computer system is powered off.

We have different types of RAM. They include:

  1. Static RAM (SRAM)
  2. Dynamic RAM (DRAM)
  3. Synchronous Dynamic RAM (SDRAM)
  4. Single Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic RAM (SDR SDRAM)
  5. Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic RAM (DDR SDRAM, DDR2, DDR3, DDR4)

 

The optical drive presents the interface for the optical disc. Optical disc include CD, DVD, and Blue-Ray Disc.

The IDE or SATA cable connects the optical drive to the motherboard while the MOLEX cable connects it to the Power Supply Unit (PSU).

Optical Drive - Len Academy
Optical Drive

 

The Hard Disc Drive (HDD) can permanently or temporarily store data. This data could be anything; from text documents, images, applications, games, movies and so on.

HDD can be internal or external and their sizes are measured typically in gigabytes (GB) and terabytes (TB).

The Hard Disc Drive is connected to the motherboard through either of the IDE/PATA, SATA or SCSI cable.

Hard Disc Drive - Len Academy
Hard Disc Drive

A modern type of storage is the Solid State Drive (SSD).

 

The Power Supply Unit (PSU) receives power (point of power entry) from an external power source like the home socket. It connects to the motherboard through the power cable. (The power cable can come in different categories). This power is allocated by the motherboard to the individual hardware component on it.

Power Supply Unit - Len Academy
Power Supply Unit

The unit of power is in watt (W).

 

The Expansion Slot adds additional functionality to the computer by holding different type expansion cards.

Examples of expansion cards include video card, wireless card, sound card and network card. They are inserted on the expansion slots to improve a computer's functionality.

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Amazing facts in ICT

1,000 computers are used to retrieve the answers to your Google search (query) in 0.2 seconds

The first hand-held mobile phone call was made in New York City on April 3rd, 1973

The logo for gmail was designed the night before it was launched

Coca Cola owns all the domain names (website names) that can be read as ahh. They include: ahh.com, ahhh.com, ahhhh.com, ahhhhh.com, ahhhhhh.com and so on..., all the way up to 62 'h's!

YouTube is a video-sharing platform which commenced operations on February 14, 2005 (Valentine's day). Three former PayPal employees -> Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim created the YouTube service (as a dating app) until Google bought it in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion

Smoking near a Mac device - Len Academy

Smoking near an Apple (Mac) computer voids the warranty.

When you add /4 to the end of Facebook's URL, it will take you to Mark Zuckerberg.

You can try it on you own; or better still, try the link below:

facebook.com/4

Apple iPad retina - Len Academy

Apple iPad retina display is actually manufactured by Samsung

The big five tech companies of the world as at 2018 are :

Google

Apple

Facebook

Amazon

Microsoft


Notable points in ICT

Python is one of the most popular programming languages, and will still remain relevant for a long time.

Python can be used for almost every kind of project including web application, machine learning, mobile and desktop applications, networking servers, APIs, scrapers, application’s backend and so on.

There is a great availability of third-party libraries for the python language. For this reason, it becomes one one of the easiest languages to learn as a beginner.

Believe it or not, Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) still remains one of the most popular backend language for web applications, even though it is currently facing a stiff competition from python language.

Content Management Systems (CMS) like wordpress and drupal are written in PHP for its backend. Interestingly, some of facebook’s backend were also written in PHP.

As at 2019, the backend of more than 40% of active websites are powered with PHP. In fact, Len Academy is also powered by PHP for its backend.

If you wish to manipulate databases via Structured Query Language (SQL) with a programming language that has dynamic capabilities, then PHP is your language of choice.

Please read on the best programming languages to lean here

Below are notable dates on internet evolution:

  • 1983: The Domain Name System (DNS) created the '.com .edu .gov .org and .net' systems for naming websites

  • 1985: The first registered domain name - 'symbolics.com' came into existence

  • 1992: The first audio and video were uploaded over the internet

  • 1992: The phrase 'surfing the Internet' became popular

  • 1993: The number of websites reached 600

  • 1993: White House and United Nations go online

  • 1994: Microsoft creates a Web browser for Windows 95

  • 1994: Yahoo! is created by Jerry Yang and David Filo

  • 1995 Amazon and eBay were launched online

  • 1996: 'The Dancing Baby' becomes the first viral internet video

  • 1997: Netflix is founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph

  • 1998: Google search engine came into existence

  • 2003: The worm 'SQL Slammer' spread over the internet within 10 minutes

  • 2004: Facebook goes online

Please read more notable dates on internet evolution here

Computer hardware is the collection of physical parts of a computer system.

Physical parts of a computer are those parts that you can see and touch. It may also be referred to as the 'equipment of the computer'.

When the computer case is opened (with a screwdriver), one would see the different hardware components inside of it. It's important to state that some other hardware components are present outside the computer case; and these are termed peripherals.

Below are hardware components seen inside the computer case:

  • Motherboard

  • Central Processing Unit (CPU)

  • Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

  • Power supply Unit (PSU)

  • Northbridge

  • Southbridge

  • Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slots

  • Network Interface Card (NIC)

  • Random Access Memory (RAM)

  • Ventilation fans

  • Heat sink

  • Hard Disc Drive (external present)
  • Solid State Drive (SSD)

  • CMOS battery

  • Optical Disc Drives (external present)

  • USB port, PS2 port, Ethernet port and other ports

  • Expansion Ports / Slots

Please read more on computer hardware here

Hardware components seen outside the computer case are called peripherals. The peripherals are grouped into the following:

  1. Input devices: They provide information to the computer.

  2. Output devices: Brings out information from the computer.

  3. Storage devices: They store information or data.

Below are examples of some peripherals:

  • Keyboard (input)

  • Monitor (output)

  • Mouse (input)

  • Webcam (input)

  • Touch Pad (input)

  • Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drive or memory card (storage)

  • Hard disc drive (storage)

  • Stylus (input)

  • Joystick(input)

  • Printer (output)

  • Speaker (output)

  • Headphones (output)