Information
TECHNOLOGY
(3rd year)
Computer Maintenance
and Technical Support
Compiled by: Muluken W.
Power
supply
POWER SUPPLY
In desktop
and tower PCs, the power supply
is the shiny metal box located at
the rear of the system unit.
Definition
• A power supply is a hardware component that
supplies power to an electrical device.
• It receives power from an electrical outlet and
converts the current from AC (alternating current) to
DC (direct current), which is what the computer
requires.
Definition cont..
• It also regulates the voltage to an adequate amount,
which allows the computer to run smoothly without
overheating.
• Since the power supply is the first place an
electronic device receives electricity, it is also the
most vulnerable to power surges and spikes.
Definition cont..
Types of PC Power Supply
• There are two major types of computer power supplies:
AT and ATX.
• AT power supplies (designed to support AT-compatible system
boards).
• ATX power supplies (designed according to newer ATX design
specifications).
Types of PC Power Supply
(AT)
• When connecting P8 and P9 to the motherboard, keep the
black ground wires next to each other.
• you don’t plug P8 and P9 in backwards.
• All AT motherboards and power supplies follow this rule.
• Be careful incorrectly inserting P8 and P9 can damage both
the power supply and other components in the PC.
Types of PC Power Supply
(AT)
• The other power-supply bundles are used to supply power to optional
systems, such as the disk and CD-ROM drives.
Types of PC Power Supply
(ATX)
• ATX uses a single P1 power connector instead of the
P8 and P9 commonly found on ATX systems.
• It requires its own special socket on the
motherboard.
Connections to Peripherals
• A power supply has two or three types of connectors
that plug into components such as hard drives,
floppy drives, CD-ROM drives and fans.
• Both AT and ATX share these same types of
connectors.
Connections to Peripherals
Molex Connectors
• The most common type of connection is
called the Molex.
• The Molex connector is used primarily for
devices that need both 12 volts and 5 volts of
power , such as hard drives and CD media
drives.
Connections to Peripherals
Molex Connectors cont..
• The Molex connector has chamfers (notches), which
make for easy installation.
• Installing a Molex backward will almost certainly
destroy the device into which the Molex is
connected.
Connections to Peripherals
Mini Connectors
• Most systems also provide a mini connector.
• It used on floppy drives.
• The mini connector installs with the 12 volt yellow
wire on the left.
Troubleshooting power supply
symptoms
• System startup failures or lockups
• Noticeable change in how long it takes for your PC to boot
and shutdown
• Spontaneous rebooting and lockups during normal operation
(small brownouts)
• Memory Errors
• HDD(hard disk drive) and fan simultaneously failing to rotate
Troubleshooting power supply
symptoms cont..
• HDD file system corruption
• USB devices power issues
• Overheating due to fan failure
• Electric shocks that are felt when the case is touched
• BIOS beeping codes detected
Troubleshooting power supply
cause
• Power-supply problems can come from both internal
and external sources.
• Failure of a power supply can be caused by failure
of components within the computer (internal), but
the most common failures come from the power
source itself (external).
Troubleshooting power supply
cause
• Common power delivery problems are spikes,
surges, sags, brownouts, and blackouts affect the
stability and operation of the main power supply
• Simply a poor quality PSU
• Overloading of the PSU
• Excessive current draw on rails.
Troubleshooting power supply
cause
• Overheating of coils, rails etc.
• Age : unfortunately psu's do not last forever
• Un-protected power surges
• Brownouts - Usually a voltage drop caused by excessive load
or insufficient voltages
• Insufficient ventilation
• Dirt/Dust build up causing complications in cooling
Troubleshooting power supply
solution
• By using Power-Protection Devices:
Uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
Voltage regulator.
Bus and
Card
Definition of bus
•A bus is a set of physical connections
(cables, printed circuits, etc.) which can be
shared by multiple hardware components in
order to communicate with one another.
Types of bus
• Buses are the set of wires that carry special
information to or from the CPU.
• There are three types of buses they are:
1. Address buses
2. Data buses
3. Control Buses
Address buses
• An address bus is a computer bus architecture
transports memory address which the
processor wants to access in order to read or
write data.
• It is a unidirectional bus
Data bus
• A data bus is a computer subsystem that allows for
the transferring of data from one component to
another on a motherboard or system board, or
between two computers.
• This can include transferring data to and from the
memory, or from the central processing unit (CPU)
to other components.
Data bus cont..
• The amount of data a data bus can handle is
called bandwidth.
Control Buses
• The control bus is used by the CPU to direct and
monitor the actions of the other functional areas of the
computer.
• It is used to transmit a variety of individual signals
(read, write, interrupt, acknowledge, and so forth)
necessary to control and coordinate the
operations of the computer.
Expansion Bus
• An expansion bus provides an input/output
pathway for transferring information between
internal hardware, such as RAM or the CPU,
and expansion devices such as a graphics
card or sound card.
Types of Expansion Buses
• There are several different types of expansion
buses with diverse features, such as:
Industry Standard Architecture (ISA)
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)
PCI Express (PCI-X)
Types of Expansion Buses
ISA
• One of the early types of expansion buses was
the ISA,
• It supported a network card, video card or
additional serial ports.
• Now it replaced by the PCI bus.
Types of Expansion Buses
(AGP)
• Stands for "Accelerated Graphics Port." AGP is
a type of expansion slot designed specifically
for graphics cards.
• The AGP interface provides a dedicated bus for
graphics data.
Types of Expansion Buses
(AGP) cont..
• they can only be used in desktop computers.
• While AGP was popular for about a decade, the
technology has been superseded by PCI Express,
which was introduced in 2004.
• Most desktop computers manufactured after 2006
do not include an AGP slot.
Types of Expansion Buses
(PCI)
• PCI is an initialism of Peripheral Component
Interconnect and is part of the PCI Local Bus
standard.
• It is a local computer bus for attaching
hardware devices in a computer.
Cards
• An expansion card is a printed circuit board that can
be installed in computer to add functionality to it.
• An expansion card is an electronic board or card
added into the expansion slot of a desktop computer
Cards cont..
• Most expansion cards are installed in PCI
slots.
• Graphics cards may also be installed in an
AGP slot, which is designed specifically for
video cards.
Cards cont..
• Some Laptops computer can accept removable
PCMCIA(Personal Computer Memory Card
International Association or PC card) cards that add
extra ports or other functionality to the computer.
Video card
• It is an internal circuit board that allows a display
device such as a monitor to display images from
the computer.
• Alternatively referred to as a display adapter,
graphics card, video adapter, video board, or a
video controller, a video card
Sound Card
• It is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates
the input and output of audio signals to and from a
computer under control of computer programs.
• The sound card is an expansion card that allows the
computer to send audio information to an audio device
like speakers or a pair of headphones.
Network card
• A network card (also called a Network Adapter or
Network Interface Card, or NIC for short) acts as the
interface between a computer and a network cable.
• The purpose of the network card is to prepare, send,
and control data on the network.
Network card cont..
• A network card usually has two indicator lights
(LEDs):
1. The green LED shows that the card is receiving
electricity;
2. The orange (10 Mb/s) or red (100 Mb/s) LED
indicates network activity (sending or receiving
data).
10Q