P6LX2-A User’s Manual
1:
Package & Product Information – 1.6
Component Information
This section is a brief description of the components on the
mainboard that you might need to know about if you want to
upgrade or change your system configuration. If your mainboard
is already installed in a system, it isn’t necessary for you to re-
view this section.
This mainboard uses the ATX ‘form factor’, a design that inte-
grates many features onto the board including some number of
external ports.
Expansion Slots
The mainboard has seven expansion slots for system expan-
sion or ‘add-on’ cards. Two are ISA slots, the others are PCI slots.
When you get an expansion card, it must use one of these to
connect to the computer.
The ISA expansion slots are a legacy of the original IBM PC/
AT design. They are 16-bit slots that run at a moderate bus speed.
There are many kinds of expansion cards that use this slot design
to connect to the computer, some of the most common being
sound and modem cards.
PCI slots are the current high-speed 32-bit standard for sys-
tem expansion cards. They operate at a faster speed and have a
greater data throughput than ISA cards.
Expansion cards often make use of system resources, which
requires managing the system resource configuration. Most newer
expansion cards support the ‘Plug and Play’ standard that allows
an Operating System like Windows95 to automatically detect
them and configure system resources as needed. Some older ISA
designs may not support this standard and may therefore require
manual configuration. You should consult the specifications or
documentation for a card to determine if this is the case and what
needs do be done to properly configure the card.