Before the parts or parts of a laptop or desktop computer; it is important to briefly define what the computer is. It is nothing more than a machine, which allows operations and calculations to be carried out, this does not make it any more or less than a calculator. We can choose between a PC or a Mac, but in the end it is a matter of preference of each person.
Remember that the acronym PC means Personal Computer (personal computer). Responds to the needs of a user. The user can make it perform operations and interact with it through peripheral devices. These computers, at the discrepancy of other microcomputers Existing at the time, they were made up of easy-to-duplicate components.
Currently, the PC (Apple or Microsoft) is still the most widely used type of computer in contrast to the computers of the 80s. There are also computers for very specific applications, such as on-board computers on the dashboard of a car.
Parts of the computer and what they are for
External parts
All desktops, desktops, towers or laptops are composed in the same way:
- Screen.
- Keyboard.
- Mouse or trackpad (tactile pave) for laptops (common in laptops like Dell laptop).
- Central unit, heart and brain of the computer.
Computer screen
The screen is the part of the computer that will display content. Therefore, it is part of the human-machine interface. Thanks to the screen, the user can interact with the computer. When the keyboard is pressed and the mouse is used, it is reflected on the screen and the data is displayed.
The screen may vary in size. This is calculated in inches on the diagonal. For a laptop it is possible to have a very compact - 10 inches. Fixed computers start at 15 inches and can reach 27 inches or more if the user decides to opt for a television screen.
Resolutions and prices vary: for a 24-inch screen, for example, the resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels, that is, high definition. Displays connect in VGA, DVI or HDMI.
Computer keyboard
Allows you to write text and communicate with the computer. The keyboards usually have a hundred keys: letters of the alphabet, numbers, accents and special keys. It is the descendant of the typewriter. A usb keyboard for laptop would not be too much in case of faults the one that carries the same.
There are several types of keyboard, for example, wired or wireless, with or without a numeric keypad, with additional functions, among others.
Keyboards vary by language. For example, the United States and most other countries in the world use the keyboard QWERTY.
The computer mouse
This allows you to move the cursor (arrow) to the screen. Therefore, it is possible to point elements to the screen and select them by clicking.
Mice have a displacement sensor, usually optical or laser today. It is possible to have a wireless mouse (you need to connect a wireless receiver to a USB port on your computer and charge it from time to time). In laptops, the mouse is not mandatory: there is a trackpad or a touch keyboard that does that.
The mouse has two buttons to click, double click or right click and a wheel to scroll down on the web page or word processing.
The central unit of the computer
It is the case that contains all the electronic equipment essential for the operation of the computer. The keyboard, mouse, and screen are connected. For example, a disc / CD-Rom is inserted into the headunit.
Currently, not everyone has a central computer: everything is grouped behind the screen, as is the case with iMac or under the keyboard, as is the case with laptops.
The central unit contains the processor (brain), hard drive (memory), motherboard (spine), and power supply (heart and lungs).
Internal parts of the computer
They are not visible from the outside, but it is necessary to open the case of the computer to discover all the electronics necessary for its operation. Thus, the components of a computer are not limited to what you see:
- The processor (Intel processor, AMD processor, Intel Core processor, microprocessor).
- Internal hard drive (SSD hard drive)
- The motherboard (ddr4 motherboard, Intel i5 motherboard, Socket motherboard or MSI motherboard)
- Power block
- RAM memory (a 16gb ram memory for PC is recommended).
- Graphics card, sound card and NIC (used to connect to the internet).
Computer processor
The internal processor or CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of the computer. Since, it organizes the exchange of data between the components that are the RAM memory (such as the ddr3 4gb ram memory for laptop, etc.), the hard disk (adata hard disk) and the graphics card.
The main tasks are:
- Read the data in memory.
- Treat the data.
- Write data to memory.
The computer's processor is responsible for making calculations, therefore, they allow the user to interact with the computer and display the system on the screen. Currently, a processor can reach 3 Ghz and even some computers have several processors.
They can process billions of data per second and perform immense calculations that allow science and medicine to progress more quickly. It should be noted that the computing power resides in the chosen processor.
Computer hard drive
It is the memory of the computer. Its function is to store computer data. The hard disk contains the installed programs, the user's personal data and the Windows, macOS or Linux system, among others.
Stores information in binary form. Today they are capable of storing several Terabytes of data (1024 Gigabytes), which corresponds to hundreds of thousands of photos, thousands of movies and millions of text documents.
There are several types of hard drives:
- Classic: They have mechanical parts, including a reading head that points the magnetic disks, thus reads and writes the data.
- SSD: No mechanical parts, they read data faster.
- External: to duplicate the backup of the computer and its internal hard drive.
- The motherboard or computer motherboard.
It is the main component of the central unit. It centralizes and processes the data that is exchanged within the computer using the processor that is attached to it. As a result, it manipulates the network, the hard drive, the mouse, the USB ports, and the keyboard. It is the support in which all the components of a computer are connected.
The motherboard is a printed circuit that connects the chipset (a set of components that guarantee all control of the motherboard). These components are directly attached to the motherboard. Therefore, the motherboard dictates the particularities of the processors and the memories that can be installed there.
The intel i7 motherboard would be ideal or a gamer motherboard too, if you are fond of video games; It is advisable to find out about pages to build a gamer pc if it is the case that you want to build your pc.
The computer's power brick (charger)
Of course, without the electric current, nothing works. The computer's power supply is a case. This block transforms and provides the necessary power for the motherboard.
The computer's RAM
RAM (Random Access Memory) is used by the processor. The data is saved while it is being processed. Among them we can find ram memory for dell laptop, ddr3 2gb ram memory for pc, ram memory for asus laptop, among others.
The particularities of this report are:
- Its speed of access.
- The temporal aspect: data is lost after the computer is turned off.
The computer video card
For games, a good graphic card is important. So a video card will be useful if you want to use your computer to play games. The gt 1030 video card is recommended if you do not know which one to choose in case you are looking to build a computer.
Computer peripherals
Now, concluding with all the parts that make up a computer. It is possible to add many devices to the computer to take advantage of all its possibilities:
- The printer (it can be a Dell printer, hp 110 printer, among others).
- The scanner.
- The webcam (often integrated into the screen).
- A wired or Wi-Fi Internet connection.
- Microphone to pc adapter.
- USB memories (adata usb memory, kingston 16gb usb memory, among others).
- A memory card.
- Computer speakers.
- A game controller (very common on gamer PCs) and gamer headphones.
- USB hard drive adapter.
- External DVD player for laptop.