Parts Of The Computer System
Your computer is made up of several key computer components which all work together to make the system work and function. Each component does a specific job and the system needs all of these components in order to function and work correctly.
Computers are very reliable but even a single failure can prevent the system from working.. Keeping spare components is a good failsafe to a fast recovery when things go wrong.
The Power supply unit
Each computer needs a power supply to provide power to the essential parts of the system. The power supply is no exception and its one of the most important parts when choosing an upgrade or a replacement. Your PSU has to supply power to several parts of the system, such as the CPU, system memory, hard drive and CD Roms, motherboard and other devices.
If you have a lot of power hungry devices in your system its best to upgrade and obtain a power unit that provides much more power.
You need to allow the PSU time to breathe, running it al 90% capacity will cause more stress and lead to a premature failure down the line. This also mean that your system is more likely to crash as it will not have the power there during peak demands.
You should always compensate for an extra 200 Watts of power, that way even when your psu starts to age and its deficiency goes down it should still have enough power to keep the system chugging along.
The central processing unit
The central processing unit or CPU for short is the bog brain of the computer. IT is the thing that makes your start menu appear when you click on it, the ting that plays your music and the thing that assists you when browsing the web.
The CPU is a giant processor which deals with each task that the computer has to perform. The CPU deals and processes many million operations per second and its so powerful that it has to be cooled down constantly otherwise it will overheat.
The CPU is most recognizable by the heat sync thats attached to it.
CPU’s can come with a single core, dual cores and 4 cores. The number of cores that a CPU has determines how fast it will run. The more cores then then more processing power it has. Generally speaking CPU performance will determine how fast your computer runs however installing the latest cpu into your computer will only give a small increase as the rest of the system would need upgrading to meet the speed of the CPU
Hard disk
The hard disk is where all the data and the operating files are located. Its a massive storage device which holds the configuration of the system and other personal settings.
Hard drives allow the user to store and save files and then come back and the system will remember the settings from last time.
A hard drive is made up of one of more platters which rotate inside the drive. The platters are really sensitive, so sensitive that if they were opened and exposed to the air the fine dust would scratch the surface and destroy and corrupt the data.
Hard disks have magnetic heads which run very close to the surface of the disk to read and write data. Its important when your handling a drive thats powered on to transport this carefully as any sudden moves can cause the disk to clash with the head causing damage.
Its also important that you store hard drives carefully. store them away from anything magnetic and also keep them out of the sun and in a cool dry place.
RAM
RAM stands for random access memory and its used every time you turn your computer on. The RAM holds the operating system along with any programs you have open. The RAM is like virtual hard disk space which is used each time you turn your PC on.
When your PC is first turned on the system first of all starts and does a self check. After this the operating platform is then loaded into the memory and extracted from the hard drive.
Different drivers and services have to be loaded into the memory and executed before the CPU can move onto the next task. This is what takes so long, its not a limitation of the PC but a list of jobs the PC has to do before it can pass the control over to the user and allow then to start using the PC
