Components Of A Computer System

Computer is an electronic machine that can store, organize and search information, do calculation and control other machines. Computer has hardware and also software.

Computer hardware means the physical component of a computer system, which has different functions to complete different tasks. Hardware is something we can touch. This hardware includes input devices, output devices, a system unit, storage devices, and communications devices. This could be a monitor, memory chip, hard drive, or CPU.

Computer software is the collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions telling a computer what to do and how to do it. Software refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of the computer for some purposes. Program software performs the function of the program it implements, either by directly providing instructions to the computer hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software. Software is intangible. Examples of software are application software and system software. Without software, hardware is useless.hero_06_software.jpg

Computer Specification

Each computer has own computer specification. The computer that I’m going to discuss about its specification is HP ProBook 4420s.

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Processor – Intel Core i3-370M Processor (2.4 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache)

Memory – 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM

Chipset – Mobile Intel® HM57 Express

Operating System – Windows 7 Ultimate

Graphic card – ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 with 512 MB dedicated video memory

Internal drive – 320 GB 7200 rpm SATA II

Optical disk drive – DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL LightScribe

Display – 14.0″ diagonal LED-backlit HD anti-glare (1366 x 768)

Integrated camera – 2.0 MP webcam

Weight and dimension- 2.27 kg, 33.60 x 23.24 x 2.70 cm

Battery type and life – 6-cell (47 WHr) Li-Ion, up to 4 hours and 30 minutes

Processor:

The processor of this laptop is Intel Core i3-370M. Processor is also called the central processing unit (CPU). It is the electronic component that interprets and carries out the basic instructions that operate a computer. Furthermore, it is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer’s functions. The central processing unit carries out each instruction of the program in sequence, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system.

System clock:

The processor relies on a small quartz crystal circuit called the system clock to control the timing of all computer operations. The pace of the system clock, called the clock speed, is measured by number of ticks per second. The clock speed for this processor of this laptop is 2.40GHz (Giga Hertz). The clock rate is the speed at which a microprocessor executes instructions. Every computer contains an internal clock that regulates the rate at which instructions are executed and synchronizes all the various computer components. The CPU requires a fixed number of clock ticks (or clock cycles) to execute each instruction. The faster the clock, the more instructions the CPU can execute per second.

Cache:

Most of today’s computers improve their processing times with cache. Memory cache helps speed the processes of the computer because it stores frequently used instructions and data. This laptop is having L3 cache on the motherboard which is separate from the processor chip.

Memory:

Memory is the primary storage. It consists of electronic components that store instructions waiting to be executed by the processor, data needed by those instructions, and the results of processing the data which is information. Most Random access memory (RAM) is volatile, which means it loses its contents when the power is removed from the computer. The RAM of this laptop is 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM. SDRAM refers to Synchronous DRAM, which can synchronized to the system clock and it is much faster than DRAM.

Chipset:

Chipset of this laptop is Mobile Intel® HM57 Express. A chipset refers to a group of integrated circuits, or chips, that are designed to work together. They are usually marketed as a single product. It is usually designed to work with a specific family of microprocessors. Because it controls communications between the processor and external devices, the chipset is used to determine the system performance.

The mobile Intel® HM57 Express Chipset is part of the mobile Intel® 5 Series Chipsets, providing single chip architecture and delivering:

Intel® Anti-Theft Technology for PC protection that can disable a lost or stolen PC and reactivate it without compromise to the system or data

Blue-ray* logo capable HD video playback, with native support for Blue-ray drives

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology for enhanced performance, power management, and data protection for the storage subsystem

Operating System:

An operating system (OS) is software, consisting of programs and data, that runs on computers and manages computer hardware resources and provides common services for efficient execution of various application software. Examples of popular modern operating systems for personal computers are Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. The operating system that installed in this laptop is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

Graphic Card:

The graphic card included in this laptop is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 with 512 MB dedicated video memory. This graphic card has 512MB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM (Video RAM), which means it has 512MB for storing data (not combining with computer RAM). The higher the memory of VRAM, the better the graphical item (such as picture, video, and game loading) can be presented and better loading time.

Internal drive:

The hard disk included in this laptop is 320 GB 7200 rpm SATA II. A hard disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile, random access device for digital data. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read and written on the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the platters. SATA II is the second generation SATA interfaces running at 3.0 Gbit/s are shipping in high volume as of 2010[update], and prevalent in all SATA disk drives and the majority of PC and server chipsets. With a native transfer rate of 3.0 Gbit/s, and taking 8b/10b encoding into account, the maximum uncoded transfer rate is 2.4 Gbit/s (300 MB/s).

Optical disc drive:

The optical disc drive in this laptop is DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL LightScribe . It is support for the Blu-ray DVD drive on configurations with integrated graphics requires Windows7 or Windows Vista. Optical disc drives are an integral part of stand-alone consumer appliances such as CD players, DVD players and DVD recorders. They are also very commonly used in computers to read software and consumer media distributed in disc form, and to record discs for archival and data exchange.

Others:

The display of this laptop is 14.0″ diagonal LED-backlit HD anti-glare (1366 x 768). Furthermore, this laptop is only weighed 2.27 kg and has a dimension of 33.60 x 23.24 x 2.70 cm. This laptop of has a webcam which is 2.0MP. Meanwhile, this laptop use the battery of 6-cell (47 WHr) Li-Ion and it can last up to 4 hours and 30 minutes.

Analysis of Overall Performance

This laptop is using a processor of Intel Core i3-370M Processor.