All language subtitles for 2_Introduction to Computer Hardware

Let's face it, computers
are everywhere.

You come into contact
with them at home,

work, the airport,
the grocery store.

You're using some type of
computer to take this course.

You know what? There's probably

one in your pocket right now.

While computers are complex

and can seem daunting to learn,

they ultimately just calculate,

process and store data.

In this lesson,
we're going to take

a peek at what's
inside of a computer.

We'll spend the next few lessons

explaining how each of
these components work.

But for now, let's check out
a typical desktop setup.

Desktops are just
computers that can

fit on or under our desks.

Here we have a monitor,

a keyboard, a mouse,
and a desktop.

Sometimes we might
even add a webcam,

speakers or printer setup.

We'll call these physical
components hardware.

Let's take a look at the
back of the computer.

You can see common
connectors here,

the power outlet here,

and the common ports here.

Ports are connection
points that we can connect

devices to that extend the
functionality of our computer.

We'll go into detail
about the ports

you see here in a later lesson,

but here's a quick rundown.

We have a port
here to connect to

a monitor and a few ports

here to plug your
keyboard and mouse.

There's another important one

here for our network connection.

With just these ports
we're able to have

the basic functionality to
browse the web and much more.

Things look pretty
similar on a laptop.

Here are some of the same ports,

a built-in monitor,
and a keyboard.

There are also physical
components inside

the laptop case that are
hidden for portability.

Once you figure out how
one computer works,

you can figure out how
any other computer works.

This is my favorite
part. Let's open up

this desktop and
take a deeper look.

Let me first clean up my
desk. Get ready for it.

It looks pretty complicated,

but that's okay. We'll
take you through it.

Let's start with a quick tour.

Then we'll dive deeper into

each of these parts
in the next lesson.

Right here, this component is

a CPU or central
processing unit,

which is covered
by this heat sink.

You can think of the CPU as
the brain of our computer.

The CPU does all the calculations
and data processing.

It communicates pretty heavily

with this component right here,

RAM or Random Access Memory.

Ram is our computer's
short-term memory.

We use this component
when we want

to store data temporarily.

Let's say you're
typing something to

a chat or a piece of text
in a word processor,

this information is
stored in the RAM.

Don't worry, we'll cram in

more details on RAM
in a later lesson.

When we want to store
anything in long-term memory,

we use this component
here, the hard drive.

The hard drive
holds all our data,

which can include music,
pictures, applications.

Let me show you something
else interesting.

Have you noticed this
large slab here?

This is our motherboard.

It holds everything
in place and let's

our components communicate
with each other.

It's the foundation
of our computer.

You can think of the
motherboard as the body or

circulatory system of the computer

that connects all
the pieces together.

The last component we'll talk
about is our power supply,

which converts the
electricity from

our wall outlet onto a format
that our computer can use.

You know what's interesting?

All these components
make up most computers,

even a mobile phone.

While it might look
very different

from your laptop,
a mobile phone,

just uses a smaller
version of the hardware

that we saw in the
desktop and laptop today.

Understanding how computer
hardware works is

a really helpful skill
set in IT support.

Since an IT department maintains

the hardware that
a company uses,

a solid understanding of
these computer internals

will come in handy when

troubleshooting hardware
related problems and

taking things apart
to see how they

work, it's just super fun.