• Motherboard: The principle printed circuit board assembly in a computer; includes core logic (chipset), interface sockets and/or slots, and input/output (I/O) ports.

• Printed circuit board (PCB): A thin, laminated sheet composed of a series of epoxy resin and copper layers and etched electronic circuits (signal, ground and power)

• Chipset (or core logic): Two or more integrated circuits which control the interfaces between the system processor, RAM, I/O devises, and adapter cards.

• Processor slot/socket: The slot or socket used to mount the system processor on the motherboard.

• AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port): A high speed interface for video cards; runs at 1X (66MHz), 2X (133MHz), or 4X (266MHz).

• PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect ): A high speed interface for video cards, sound cards, network interface cards, and modems; runs at 33MHz.

• ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) : A relatively low speed interface primarily used for sound cards and modems; runs at approx. 8MHz.

• Port (serial, parallel, PS/2, USB, sound, LAN, VGA, SCSI): Interface connectors for the associated types of devices

• Serial: A low speed interface typically used for mice and external modems

• Parallel: A low speed interface typically used for printers.

• PS/2: A low speed interface used for mice and keyboards.

• USB (Universal Serial Bus): A medium speed interface typically used for mice, keyboards, scanners, display panels (control features, not data), speakers (control features, not sound), scanners, and some digital cameras.

• VGA (Video Graphics Adapter): The interface from your video card or integrated video connector and the system display monitor.