The name says it all - the Mother and the heart of the PC. This is the large circuit board in the middle of the case which houses the main components of the computer. These include the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System that determines what the computer can do without accessing programs from a disk), the cache and, of course, the CPU. Interestingly, some high-spec motherboards are starting to appear with built-in water cooling systems.

There will be slots for plugging-in memory (RAM) and expansion slots for plugging in devices such as graphics cards, TV Tuners and so on. Also connections for various controllers which will vary from board to board. Older boards had a range of serial and parallel ports but, as we said at the start, technology is moving on and the current ports of choice include USB, FireWire, EIDE (for older drive connections), SATA (for modern drive connections, possibly eSATA (for external drive connections), PCI and PCI-E (for graphics cards), keyboard (PS/2) and mouse connections (although some boards omit a dedicated mouse port in favour of USB).

There will usually also be an Ethernet LAN (Local Area Network) port or two and often a modem and a WiFi port. Most motherboards also have built-in sound capabilities, many of good quality, although musicians and dedicated audiophiles will inevitably want to add a dedicated sound card.

Motherboards are quite complex although, in spite of having an increasing number of features, they are arguably easier to work with than motherboards of several years ago.

It's reassuring to know that most of us don't need to know exactly what they contain or how they work. Any complete computer system you buy ought to be optimally set up so the motherboard and all its bits are working together in perfect harmony.

However, if you intend to customise, change or add anything to the motherboard, read the manual carefully. Keep it safe. Final words of wisdom - don't mess with the Mother unless you're know what you're doin'!