Exploring Different Expansion cards
Expansion cards are installed in the motherboard to increase the functionalities and capabilities of a PC. They are printed circuit boards whose main purpose is to offer features that are not offered by the motherboard. For example, the original IBM PC did not have a graphics controller to enable graphics capability.
There are various formats in which expansions are available, but the card should match the bus type of the motherboard on which it is being installed. For example, a PCI network card should be installed into a PCI slot only. While fitting an expansion card, one should be very careful as it might get damaged if too much force is applied to it.
In today’s integrated components, many services have their inbuilt adapters, but the drivers still need to be installed to work with the operating system. Device Manager in a PC shows the collection of devices to be without their device drivers. CD-ROMs which contain the device drivers are supplied by the motherboard manufacturers to get the built-in electronics recognized by the operating system.
Some cards which are necessary for the good performance and are installed into the mother board’s expansion slots are as follows:
- Multimedia
- Video
- Communications
- Input/output
- Thunderbolt
