Daughter Boards and Riser Boards

 

Daughter boards and riser boards plug into the motherboard to expand the number of expansion slots or ports available, or in some cases, add devices. If the board is used solely to add extra PCI slots or turn the angle of adapter cards to fit into smaller cases, it is a riser. The two exceptions are Audio Modem Riser (AMR) and Communications Network Risers (CNR). AMR and CNR riser cards provide I/O port connections for input/output (I/O) ports built in to the motherboard (inte-grated ports). Both types of cards are now obsolete.

Chapter 1: Hardware 23

 

1. PS/2 keyboard

 

2. Digital SPDIF audio

 

3. VGA analog audio port

 

4. Ethernet (RJ-45) port

 

5. HD audio ports

 

6. USB 3.0 ports

 

7. eSATA port

 

8. IEEE-1394a (FireWire 400) port

 

9. DVI-D digital video port

 

10. HDMI digital A/V port

 

11. USB 2.0 ports

 

Figure 1-10 Integrated ports on the rear of a recent system.

 

Storage Devices

 

There are many types of storage media: magnetic disk, tape, laser, and solid-state flash. There are internal drives and external storage devices. Internal hard drives mount in 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch bays (and can be adapted to larger bays). Optical drives mount in 5.25-inch bays. External drives con-nect through many kinds of readers and ports. USB, FireWire, and eSATA are common. Card read-ers support flash memory cards, and optical drives support optical discs. Table 1-8 provides a brief overview of drive interfaces. For more information, continue reading.

 

Table 1-8 Overview of Drive Interfaces

Drives per	Channel	Number	Hot	Descriptions and Details
Interface		of Pins	Swappable
PATA, ATA,		40, 80	No	Old standard.
IDE, EIDE				Two drives per channel.
				Jumpers assign master and
				slave drives. CS assigns pri-
				mary and secondary(master/
				slave) by drive position on
				cable.

24 CompTIA A+ Quick Reference

 

Table 1-8 Continued

Drives per	Channel	Number	Hot	Descriptions and Details
Interface		of Pins	Swappable
SCSI	8 or 16	50, 68, 80	Yes	Typically found on servers.
				Drives are arranged along a
				bus-like cable with termina-
				tors on both ends.
				Jumpers or dip switches
				assign drive numbers in
				binary.
SATA			Yes	Small cable improves air flow
				for improved cooling.
				Faster than PATA.
				One drive per channel.
FDD			No	Only for floppy disk drives
				(FDDs).

 

Pin 1 is usually oriented clos-est to the power connector, but look for the red stripe.

 

Some old FDD cables support multiple FDDs. They have a twist in the middle of the rib-bon connectors.