Job of the Northbridge Chipset

[elitecorpz]

The northbridge typically handles communications between the CPU, RAM, AGP or PCI Express, and the southbridge.
Now, is the chip just a processor or does it include firmware if you will that controls it, telling it where to send the signals

[casecutter]

THe bios controls the base functions of the motherboard.

[bf2nut]

The northbridge handles communications from the CPU directly to your ram RAM for intel.amd has on board mem controller built into it.this is why amd has no northbridge and only a southbridge

The southbridge handles communications from the cpu to AGP or the PCI Express slots\pci slots.

[nooh]

Its like a traffic lights , it makes sure that everyone useing these buses can send there data , also it lets the southbridge send its data via the northbridge.

Cpu is the boss , cpu gives rights to the northbridge to keep all the buses intact and keep them all flowing good and there are quartz crystals on the board to keep all the data flowing on a certain hearbet or mhz. Every component has like a ID number , well not one id but depending how many lanes they use it has that many ID numbers for there bus which they then transfer the data to the northbridge and wherever it needs to go from there.

i think. :)

[wayout44]

Originally Posted by bf2nut

The northbridge handles communications from the CPU directly to your ram RAM for intel.amd has on board mem controller built into it.this is why amd has no northbridge and only a southbridge

The southbridge handles communications from the cpu to AGP or the PCI Express slots\pci slots.

I most certainly wouldn't ask you for advice on PC's after that post (I've never seen a proper AGP slot hang off a southbridge).

[Kheldar]

firmware can be found on the following devices

Mboard (the firmware usually upgrades all associeted chipsets, raid etc)

CDrom/DVD drives

Graphics Cards - i haven't updated firmware on a graphics card for a couple years, but some do have updateable firmware.

Raid controllers (pci) tend to have firmware

Printers espcially network ones

but generally the 2 you have to worry about are motherboard & cdrom/dvd (lets you read more media types)