Generally, you'll see these connectors on a motherboard:

• VGA/DVI port - only present on motherboards that have on-board graphics cards, may have only VGA, only DVI, or both connectors.
• USB 2.0
• External SATA - not often present but it's becoming prevalent.
• Firewire - Not common, but still possible to see, being phased out
• RJ-45 LAN - your wired Ethernet connection, usually only one but can see multiple
• Audio connectors - can come in several varieties from three ports to several plus optical out

There are also some uncommon connectors you may come across:

• PS/2 - not common anymore, outdated technology, but still possible to see
• Serial port - more uncommon than PS/2, used for serial communication devices (legacy connector)
• Parallel port - more uncommon than PS/2, used for old printers (legacy connector)
• BNC/Coaxial - looks like a connector for Cable TV, but it's actually a network connector, used on legacy server hardware, very uncommon

To see the types of connectors that you'll see on a typical motherboard, click here.

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