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A Guide On The Main Components In a PC
be greatly reduced.
Memory
The Memory of the computer comes under two sections, the RAM and the ROM. RAM stands for Random Access Memory and ROM stands for Read Only Memory. The difference between the two is that, RAM is volatile and ROM is not. Volatile, when referred to in this way, means that when the workstation powers down or switches off then the contents of the memory is cleared. As I write this guide it is being stored in the RAM, if I where to turn off the computer without saving then the RAM would be cleared and it would be very hard to recover the document. The ROM is also known as the BIOS (Basic Input Output Services) and this holds certain coding that controls certain things about the computer system. Shelley O'Hara has this to say about memory 'If the processor is the the most important factor in how a PC performs, memory is a close second-place.' This statement goes hand in hand with what was said in the CPU section of this guide, that a fast CPU is almost useless without the rest of the system being equally as powerful. ROM may in most cases be referred to as the BIOS however that's not strictly true, Shelley O'Hara mentions this in her section on memory.
Memory as in RAM is very important to the computer, especially if this particular computer is going to be working with a lot of large files and programs, it would be a disaster if you were not able to open all of the applications that you need because of the lack of memory. However on the other hand ROM is not very important, all that you should really need to make sure about the ROM is that the BIOS version written onto it is the most recent (or a fairly recent) version.
O/I Ports
O/I Ports means Output/Input Ports. This covers all of the sockets, commonly at the back of the PC. The intention of these ports are that you will use them to plug in external hardware such as a printer or a mouse into your PC. They are essential for all PC's because without them the user would be unable to interface with the PC. They work, for the most part, by being connected into the motherboard. Most of these are nowadays automatically detected as soon as we plug them into the slot therefore making it easy to just plug in say a mouse or a printer and be able to use it right away.
They are very important towards the performance of the system, after all what good is a computer if you can't do anything with it? Having a computer with no mouse and keyboard would be like a horse with no legs, it's near enough useless. Not all things that go in these ports are that important, for example you don't need a printer to be able to word process but it is extremely handy to be able to just plug in a [next page]