What are the key parts of my computer?

Question: What are the key parts of my computer?

Answer: Oh my goodness! My ‘tower’ went bad, or is it my ‘hard drive’, or is it my ‘cup-holder holder’? Gee, naming parts of my computer is sooo difficult!

Don’t let it get you down – it happens every day, and should be a non-issue after reading this article. Let’s start with the basic parts of the computer:

1) The ‘tower’, ‘disk drive’, ‘hard drive’, ‘automatic cup-holder’, etc.

The ‘main-brain’ of the computer is known as the ‘Central Processing Unit’.
For those of us that cannot deal with multi-syllable words, just call it by the more commonly used term, ‘CPU’ (not to be confused with CTU and Jack Bauer).

The CPU houses the computer’s ‘main-brain’. Oops, there’s another one of those tricky definitions. Actually, the ‘main-brain’ is an electronic circuit board known as the ‘Motherboard’. ‘Mom’ (for short) includes many components that help the computer run. One of the components is known as the keeper-of-the-keys, the director of activities, the conductor, or the orchestra leader. Technically, this component is known as the Microprocessor Chip. This is what we all know and love as the ‘Intel Inside ‘ or ‘AMD’ chip. It orchestrates all of the computer’s activities.

Other areas of ‘Mom’ include.

• A video circuit – the part that forms the pictures that you see on your monitor. Oh My! ‘monitor’ – that’s your display screen – usually separate from the CPU in desktop computers.
• An audio circuit that feeds your speakers with sound.
• Hard drives – providing physical storage for all those programs you so like to run, from ‘Word’ to ‘Warcraft’.
• CD and DVD readers and writers – the gadgets that you stick installation disks into.
• Other goodies to help your computer run, such as power supplies, USB ports and networking cards, just to name a few.

Bottom Line

Now you know that the ‘main brain’ of the computer is known as the ‘CPU’.
It is time to impress your friends with your new-found computer expertise!
OR.
Just tell them you learned how to conquer your ‘tower’.
It’s your choice!

Written by Ken Steele
Mother Lode Internet Tech Support
209-536-5800

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