A central bundle of wires or traces on a motherboard that physically connects the major components of a computing system. It typically combines the address bus, data bus, and control bus into one logical architecture. The speed and width of the system bus dictate how fast the CPU can fetch instructions and move data to RAM or expansion cards.
The CPU is starving for data because the system bus is saturated by the DMA controller.
Related terms
Address bus
A set of wires used by a processor to specify the physical location of data in memory.
Control bus
A set of physical connections used by a central processing unit to communicate control signals to other hardware.
Motherboard
The main printed circuit board in a computer or complex electronic system routes power and data between major components.
CPU
The central processing unit is the primary logic chip that executes instructions and coordinates system operations.