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When you're working with expansion cards, you'll find
there are many different styles and types.
Here's one that's common to see if you're working with a
high-end video card.
You have a very advanced graphic function.
A lot of gamers like to have these types of video cards.
First you can see, they're very big.
Because they have a fan built right into
the video card itself.
They get very, very hot.
It's not uncommon to see them having their own cooling
system built right into the system.
And because of that, it uses up quite a bit of room when
you plug it into an expansion slot.
Of course, you'll see the interfaces
that you'll plug into.
And then the rest of the area is set up to blow air
constantly through that particular video card.
Audio cards look a lot different
than the video cards.
They don't have the same high-powered CPU processing
requirements.
So there's no built-in fan system.
It simply uses the cooling system that's
already in your computer.
And very often, they're much smaller cards, because you
don't need a lot of different components on the card itself.
Usually you do have a lot of different
interfaces on the back.
You might be plugging in a Dolby stereo-type system.
There might be a subwoofer.
There might even be optical connections so that you could
plug in between the audio card and your audio system without
any type of electrical interference between those.
A type of card that combines both audio and video, along
with a different type of audio and video decoder, is
something like a television tuner.
This is one where you would plug in, for instance, the
coax directly from a video signal.
And then you would output that same video signal through
other types of interfaces.
These generally also have fans on them, just to make sure
that that video processing is being cooled as
effectively as possible.
If you have a motherboard it doesn't have SCSI connectors
on there for storage, but you have SCSI hard drives, you may
need to install a separate SCSI adapter.
That's one that plugs right into your motherboard.
It might have memory and CPUs right on the system itself.
And then it will have interfaces that you'll use to
either plug into internal hard drives--
sometimes the adapters will have interfaces external.
So you can plug into external storage systems as well.
If you have a modern motherboard, you may find that
you don't have some of the legacy ports that you used to
have on your older computers.
And if you have a printer that needs a parallel interface, or
you have some type of serial connected device, you may need
some of those older ports.
This is a good example of an adapter card that provides
both a parallel port and a serial port.
And it's plugging into the modern PCI express interface
that's on your motherboard.
By simply installing this, now you'll have those same ports
that you used to have on your older computer, now available
to you on your modern motherboard.
On my computer, I never have enough USB ports.
I have so many different USB devices
plugged into my computer.
Having an additional card to plug into my PCI bus, might
provide me with some additional ports that I can
then use to plug in additional USB devices.
It's very common to see this, especially if you have a lot
of USB connected devices.
You need additional connectivity?
Just add another adapter card.
And now you have more USB ports.
Occasionally, I'll run into a very specialized-type
application, that is at a location that doesn't have
always-on internet.
It only needs to transfer a small amount of
information at a time.
And we might use something like a modem-- a modulator,
de-modulator--
that plugs directly into a normal phone line.
That way you're able to simply have a very common phone line
connection.
And then at night, the computer picks up the line,
dials another phone number that connects to a modem on
the other end, transfers the information, and then hangs up
the phone line.
It makes it very simple to use an existing telephone line,
and not having to pay for an always on internet connection.
Our motherboards, these days, tend to have ethernet network
connections built right into the motherboard.
But if you need an additional connection, or maybe the
motherboard ethernet connection is no longer
working, you can get an ethernet adapter to plug into
one of your adapter slots.
And it will provide you with an ethernet connection right
out of the back of your computer.
Many servers will have multiple ethernet connections
on there, and be able to use all of them simultaneously to
improve the throughput, and be able to
have some fault tolerance.
If you have an adapter card that fails, the other ethernet
adapter card will continue to operate.
And that server will continue to be available.
If you're planning to install one of these types of
adapters, you need to look at your motherboard itself,
examine what type of slots might be available on the
motherboard.
Because you'll need to purchase an adapter that's
going to match the configuration of your
motherboard.
Then look at the adapter documentation itself,
determine what type of hardware and software it
requires, especially from an operating system perspective.
See if there's any "gotchas." You might want to go to that
manufacturer's knowledge base and see if there's any
problems with certain versions of drivers, or certain types
of motherboards.
And you might want to also go to support forums to find out
what other people are saying about these adapters.
Maybe a certain manufacture's adapter is easier or harder to
install than in others.
Another important consideration is that some
manufacturers require that you install the driver prior to
installing the hardware.
Whereas others may require that you first install the
hardware, and then later you will install the drivers.
Make sure you check the documentation for your adapter
card to see exactly what order that
installation should be performed.
The physical process of installing an adapter card
onto a motherboard is relatively simple.
You have your adapter slots on your motherboard.
And you have already purchased a card that you know is
compatible with and fits into the slots available.
So you would simply place it on top of one of those adapter
slots and give it a gentle push down.
It doesn't take a lot of pressure to push these in.
But you want to be sure that it goes all the way into the
slot as far as possible.
You want to make sure you've got that copper contacts all
the way in, as far as they can go inside of
that adapter slot.
And that way, you ensure that when you power on this system,
that that's going to be working exactly the way you
would expect.
When you're ready to power on your computer, you've either
already installed the driver prior to putting the hardware
into the system, or that you're about to install the
driver inside of your computer, now that the
hardware has been installed.
Sometimes they'll ship the driver on a DVD with the
hardware itself.
I often will go right to the manufacturer's website and
make sure I download the latest driver, so that I know
I have whatever the latest and greatest might be.
If there's an existing driver, it may require that you want
to install the driver.
The best way in Windows to do that, is through the Windows
Device Manager.
Sometimes there is a wizard or a set-up executable program
you'll use.
You won't go through the Windows process for
installing a driver.
You'll simply run the program that the
manufacturer provides.
If you do have a simple driver-- there is no
installation program--
then you'll use something like the Windows Device Manager to
install the driver and get everything running.
And once it is installed, once the driver is updated, once
you've booted the system up or restarted it, you should be
able to go to the Windows Device Manager and see the
status of your brand new adapter card.
If everything has worked properly, it will tell you
that that driver is installed, and it's working perfectly.