Motherboard
This is pretty much a large circuit board with all the required slots and connectors for all your computer components, such as the RAM and CPU. It ensures that all the components of the computer can talk to each other, for example the CPU can communicate with the RAM to store data temporarily. It also distributes power to the parts connected to it. Each part or component is also known as a module. You can swap out modules, for example replacing the RAM or storage on the device, this is considered modular design, it has many benefits, such as when a component breaks, you can simply swap it out for a new one, or if you want to upgrade the computer, it would be the same process of just swapping it out for something new. It does come with down sides however, companies such as Apple will ship their Macbooks with a non-modular motherboard design, this can either help shrink the form factor to help the laptop stay small in size, or even improve overall performance, but at the cost of repairability and upgradeability.
ZIF Socket
The Zero Insertion Force or for short, the ZIF socket is where we connect the Central Processing Unit, the CPU for short, to the motherboard. You'll notice on the side it has a little clamp, this is used to insert or remove the CPU without damaging its connectors. The CPU connectors are incredibly fragile, so when building your own PC, make sure to not force it into the socket, as it can bend or damage the connectors. We'll talk more about the CPU and its functions in future videos.
The CPU does most of the work on in a computer, this includes fetching data and instructions from the RAM, decoding, executing and transferring the data back to the RAM.
DIMM Slots
Dual Inline Memory Modules or DIMMs for short are the memory sticks or RAM (Random Access Memory) as most people call it, that you add to your computer. You may also come across SO-DIMMs in the wild, those are usually smaller and are often used in Laptops and other smaller devices.
SATA Connectors
These connectors allow you to plug in your storage devices, such as Solid State Drives (SSDs) and Hard Drives (HDD) into your Motherboard.
Expansion Slots
These slots expand your computer so it can connect more circuits, or in simpler form for the video "Motherboards" to your Motherboard. They are mainly used for Graphics Cards these days.
ROM
ReadOnly Memory is storage that, as the name suggestions, can only be read from but not written to. It holds any data stored in it, even when the power is turned off. It can be found on pretty much all electronic devices, as it keeps what is called the "firmware". Firmware is code that provides low-level control of hardware. You may also know it as the Basic Input Output System (BIOS), EFI or UEFI.
The firmware is what tells your computer to how to start itself. One of the important things it does is the Power On Self Test, or POST, which checks that all the important hardware such as RAM and Hard Drives are working. If you ever messed around with your PC hardware, you may have heard beeps when something is wrong, these beeps usually indicate what is wrong, such as the RAM not being properly placed. The BIOS also provides a menu to configure your computer, such as set which drive should be booted first so it can locate and load the operating system, or giving you the options to overclock your system.
You might be wondering, if the ROM can not be written to, how can we save changes made in the BIOS menu? That is where CMOS, or Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor, comes in. All BIOS settings are stored there, that is why when you remove the CMOS Battery, you will reset your BIOS and it will use its default settings again, since the CMOS will lose power if it does not have a battery to keep the data safe.
It is possible to update your firmware, which can lead to benefits of making your system work faster or adding new features to the device. Modern systems use EEPRIM (Erasable Programmable ROM), which can be erased electronically, and a new firmware can be saved to it. Doing this is also known as "flashing the ROM". This process can be very fragile, if it is interrupted or left incomplete during an update, the firmware may become corrupted and the system may not be able to work again. Many modern computer motherboards however does include ways to restore broken firmware.