Expansion Card, Bus Lines, & Ports

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Expansion Card, Bus Lines, & Ports

Expansion Card & Bus

  • Expansion cards are circuit boards that provide more memory or that control peripheral devices (for graphics, sound, video, network interface, wireless connection, etc.).
  • Buses connect the expansion cards to ports.
  • A port is a connecting socket or jack on the outside of the computer unit or device into which are plugged different kinds of cables that connect peripheral devices.
  • Expansion Cards: If a computer uses closed architecture, no expansion  cards can be added; if the computer uses open architecture, expansion cards can be inserted in expansion slots inside the computer, connected to the motherboard.

 

  

  • An expansion bus is not the same as the frontside bus:
    • Frontside bus: The bus that connects the CPU within itself and to the main memory.
    • Expansion bus: Buses that connect the CPU with expansion slots on the motherboard and thus via ports with peripheral devices.
  • Types of expansion buses:
    • PCI: High-speed bus that has been widely used to connect PC graphics cards, sound cards, modems, and high-speed network cards.
    • PCI Express: Doubles the speed of the original PCI bus. PCIe is the latest standard for expansion cards available on mainstream personal computers.
    • Accelerated Graphics: Transmits data at twice the speed of a PCI bus and is designed to support video and 3-D graphics.
    • Universal Serial Bus (USB): Does away with the need to install cards in expansion slots. USB devices can connect one to another outside the system unit, and then the USB bus connects to the PCI bus on the motherboard.
    • Firewire: Resembles the USB bus but is used for more specialized purposes, such as to connect audio and video equipment to the motherboard.

 

Port

There are many types of the port that are available such as : 

  • Serial port: Used to transmit data slowly over long distance
      • Sends data sequentially, one bite at a time
      • Used to connect older keyboards, mouse, monitors, dial-up modems
  • Parallel port: For transmitting data quickly over short distances
      • Transmits 8 bytes simultaneously
      • Connects printers, external disks, tape backups 
  • USB port: Universal Serial Bus high-speed hardware standard for interfacing peripheral devices, such as scanners and printers, to computers without a need for special expansion cards or other hardware modifications to the computer. USB is replacing many varieties of serial and parallel ports.

 

 

  • FireWire: Intended for multiple devices working with lots of data and requiring fast transmission speeds, such as DVD drives, digital video cameras, and gaming consoles.
  • Ethernet: Supports a network standard for linking a wired local area network and connecting it to a DSL or a cable modem for high-speed Internet access.
  • Graphics: Connects digital monitors and multimedia digital devices, such as TVs and DVD players.
  • eSATA: External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment; allows the attachment of an eSATA hard disk, which has fast data transmission speeds.
  • Bluetooth: Connects devices that use short-range radio waves that transmit up to 30 feet.
  • IrDA: Transfers data via infrared light waves between directly aligned devices, as between a smartphone and a desktop computer.
  • HDMI: High-Definition Multimedia Interface; carries both video and audio signals and is used for                           connecting HDTVs, DVD players, and game consoles to computers, laptops, and other devices.
  • MIDI: Musical Instrument Digital Interface; used to connect electronic musical instruments to a sound the card that converts the signals to digital instructions that can be saved or manipulated.

                

 

 

   

 

 


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