Slots In Motherboard
Another way to add a M.2 SSD to it is through a PCI adapter. However, this motherboard has only 2.0 PCI slots. The M.2 SSD is designed to perform best with 3.0 slots. Am I correct that a M.2 SSD will work in a PCI 2.0 slot? And if so, does the performance, though less than optimal, justify the upgrade, or should I invest in a new motherboard? For those of you who prefer to build their own PCs, sometimes you begin to wonder what you can do with the slots and ports you don’t always take advantage of. For example, we commonly run across questions involving the PCIe 1x slot on a motherboard and what it can be used for. Those longer 8x and 16x slots are mostly dedicated to your video card (or cards), but not everyone knows what they. Some years ago, the embedded PC motherboard used in a product had a CF card slot on the motherboard. The SD is probably a modern update to that. For a device that will run embedded firmware, not a desktop or conventional server (e.g. A specialized medical imaging printer) this is a specific feature desired of the board. Every motherboard has certain expansion slots on it for the purpose of adding external peripherals to a computer. The types of expansion slots and the standards they offer have constantly been evolving.
sfbayzfs
Active Member
I have a lot of system building experience, and generally held the belief that bad RAM slots on motherboards are uncommon. The first one I encountered was a couple of years ago - I opened up a brand new ITX celeron board and I eventually discovered that one of the RAM slots was bad. The motherboard wouldn't boot with any RAM installed in one of the two RAM slots on the motherboard - remove RAM from that slot, and the system booted fine with RAM in the other slot only. (Of course I had been storing the board for long enough that it was out of warranty, but that's another story...) I suspected a bad solder joint or tin whisker somewhere on the bad RAM slot, but my soldering iron was misplaced a while ago, and a visual inspection of the underside of the board looked OK.I have been testing more boards than I used to over the past year, and I have found a number of other boards which have bad RAM slots, so I was wondering how many bad RAM slots others here have run into on otherwise good motherboards.
Also, has anyone ever successfully fixed a bad RAM slot, say with a solder reflow?
So far, in terms of failure modes with bad RAM slots, either any RAM in that slot is not recognized and ignored, or else the system won't boot with any RAM in that slot, either locking up during POST or black screen before POST, sometimes with beeps. Any time I have had memtest rack up errors, I have eventually traced it to an actual bad stick of RAM, but has anyone else noticed bad RAM slots causing other symptoms?
On dual processor Xeon boards I have further findings:
What Is Pcie Slots In Motherboard
- If the blue (primary) RAM slot in a channel is bad, that whole channel is unusable
- If the first blue slot for a CPU is bad, that CPU socket is unusable
- If a non-blue slot is bad, usually only that slot is bad
4. Northbridge: This allows communication between the CPU and the system memory and PCI-E slots. It is a focal Point of Motherboard and It is also called as Memory Controller Hub.
5. ATX 12V 2X and 4 Pin Power Connection : This is one of two power connections that supply power to the .motherboard This connection will come from your Power Supply.
6. CPU-Fan Connection: This is where the CPU fan will connect. Using this connection over one fof the power supply will allow the motherboard to control the speed of the fan, based on the CPU temperature.
7. Socket: This is where the CPU will plug in. The orange bracket that is surrounding it is used for high end heat sinks. It helps to support the weight of the heat sink.
8. DIMM slots: DIMM's are by far and away the most used memory types in today's computers. They vary in speeds and standards however and they need to match up to what your motherboard has been designed to take. The four standards of DIMM's being used at the moment are SDR (Single Data Rate), DDR (Double Data Rate), DDR2 and DDR3. The speeds of memory can vary between 66Mhz to 1600Mhz.
9. ATX Power Connector: This is the second of two power connections. This is the main power connection for the motherboard, and comes from the Power Supply.
10. IDE connectors or PATA connectors : IDE full form is Integrated Device Electronics. it supports IDE devices, such as Hard disks and CD and DVD drives. Most drives today come with SATA connections.
11. Southbridge: This is the controller for components such as the PCI slots, onboard audio, and USB connections.
12. SATA Connections : SATA full form is Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. These are connect with serial ATA devices, such as Hard disk drives and CD or DVD drives.
13. Front Panel Connections: this is where we will hook in the connections from the case. These are mostly the different lights on the case, such as power on, hard drive activity etc.
14. FDD Connection: The FDD is the Floppy Disk controller. Floppy Drive Connector is used to connect floppy drives. It supports two floppy drives.
15. External USB Connections: There are usually a couple of these ports located on each motherboard used for connecting pen drives and external hard drives, like Ipods or Mp3 players.
16. CMOS battery :This is the motherboard's battery, which is used to power the south bridge and the BIOS to save the setting, data and time.