Reference number: CH000997

What does the inside of a computer look like?

Question:

What does the inside of a computer look like?

Answer:

The inside of a computer is not as complicated as you may think. Below is an example of what the inside of a computer looks like and pointers to each of the major components that make a computer.

Information about each of the items pointed out in the above picture are found in the below links.

• CD-ROM
• Power cable (Molex)
• Floppy drive
• IDE cable (Data cable)
• Hard disk drive
• Motherboard
• Power supply
• Processor (CPU)
• Fan (Heatsink)
• Memory (RAM)
• Expansion card (AGP, PCI and ISA)

Additional information:

• Additional information on what to do with a dirty computer and how to clean computer components can be found on our cleaning help page.
• Information about installing computer hardware can be found on document CHADD.
• See our chassis dictionary definition for additional information about the computer case and related links.