The Four Major Differences between Industrial Control Computers and Computers

　　Both industrial control computers and computers belong to the category of computers, and their main structures are composed of CPU, memory, and storage. However, due to different application fields, there are significant differences in their respective designs. Computers are mainly used for office and entertainment, while industrial control computers are mainly used for industrial control. Their differences mainly include the following major points.

　　1. Different appearance

　　The appearance of a computer is generally better when placed in an office or home environment. The appearance of a computer pursues beauty and ease of placement. So, the appearance of ordinary computers is basically a vertical chassis, which is usually equipped with only one power cooling fan. The CPU and graphics card will be equipped with internal cooling fans.

　　The appearance of industrial control computers, as they are used for industrial control, will face various harsh environments. For example, industrial dust, electromagnetic interference, vibration, and so on. In order to prevent electromagnetic interference, the chassis of industrial computers are made of fully tempered industrial chassis that comply with the "EIA" standard, enhancing their ability to resist electromagnetic interference. To prevent dust, the chassis generally adopts positive pressure convection exhaust, with two fans installed and a dust filter installed at the air outlet. In order to resist vibration, industrial control computers adopt bus structure and modular design.

　　2. Different structures

　　The computer adopts the method of directly installing the CPU, memory, disk, and graphics card on the motherboard. The communication efficiency between various components is higher. Meanwhile, in order to better meet the needs of entertainment and office work, the performance of computer configurations is generally relatively high.

　　The industrial control computer adopts a bus structure and modular design. It has a passive motherboard and all components are modular motherboards. The CPU motherboard must be inserted into the dedicated slot of the passive motherboard. Other modular expansion boards are inserted into the expansion slots of passive motherboards. The resistors, capacitors, and inductors on each module are designed with stronger anti-interference capabilities. This method can better shield external interference and run more stably.

　　3. Different scalability

　　The expandability of a computer depends entirely on the interfaces reserved on the motherboard, usually with a maximum of 2-4 memory slots, 2-5 hard disk interfaces, and 2-4 PCIE slots. This scalability can basically meet the needs of desktop entertainment and office use.

　　Industrial computers are completely different, as industrial control requires various interfaces. So, there are many slots on the passive motherboard of industrial control computers, which can expand up to 20 boards. These boards can be used to receive industrial control signals. It can transmit various industrial control protocols.

　　4. Different software environments

　　Computer software environment, most computers are equipped with the latest Windows operating system, of course, Apple computers are usually equipped with Mac OS. The software is basically equipped with office suite, video, social, gaming and other software as standard. Operating system optimization is basically aimed at optimizing front-end programs.

　　Industrial control computer software environment, most industrial control computers are also equipped with Windows operating system, but in order to adapt to industrial control software, they are often equipped with relatively old Windows, such as Windows XP. So, when vulnerabilities were exposed in Windows XP, these industrial computers were a large group. In terms of software, as it is specifically designed for the industrial control field, specialized industrial control software is installed. When optimizing an operating system, one will also face the challenge of optimizing industrial control software.

　　Summary: Although both computers and industrial control computers are computers, there are still significant differences due to their different application fields. Ordinary computers are prone to problems when used in the field of industrial control. Industrial control computers are also difficult to use for personal office and entertainment. So, don't confuse the two.