Computers and server hardware

Modern computers are electronic devices used to compute, analyze, and display data to the user. Over the last decade, computers have increasingly grown smaller and more complex as transistor size has shrunk and roughly doubling in number for a given chip size in a phenomenon is known as Moore's law.

The basic computer has various components designed to provide power to the unit, control the flow of electricity to various components, process commands, and to display and store data. Both consumer oriented computer hardware and server hardware utilized in enterprise environments have the same basic components.

Personal computer (PC) components need to work together in order to form a stable computer system. Consumer computer systems can either be prebuilt from Big Box stores such as Bestbuy or OEM manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, HP, or Asus

Consumer Computer Hardware

Power Supply

PC power supplies convert AC power (typically 110 V in the US) to DC current to be distributed to the various powered computer components. Power supplies typically include the following connectors.

• 24 pin connector - this connector connects directly to the mainboard and provides power to the board itself.
• 4 pin connector - this connector connects to the CPU, sometimes seen as a 4+4 connector.