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.