system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
what does a "chipset" do?

Whenever someone leaves the company I wipe their computer by putting a fresh copy of XP on.  Then I re-do all the drivers.  I get that you need the audio driver to make the audio work, the network driver for the wireless to work, etc, but I've never been able to figure out what the chipset does.  I just install them anyway.  Maybe this isn't the right subreddit for this, but I'm honestly curious, and the explanation on wikipedia is way to technical for me to understand.

Anyone care to explain this to me as if I were five?

EDIT: This was a great way to get my question answered and I really appreciate the responses - I wish the best for this new subreddit and will try to answer a question on a topic I am knowledgeable about in return - thanks!!!
gpt
Chipset refers to the north and southbridge. Think of them as a cop directing traffic. The northbridge deals with the processor, graphics card, and memory. While the southbridge deals mainly with USB, SATA and other peripherals. As you can imagine, the northbridge has a heavier load which is usually why the heatsink on it is much larger then that of a southbridge. Anyway back to the cop, all the components send their signals to the appropriate chipset and then the chipset decides where they should go. If you look on a motherboard, the northbridge is right in the middle of all 3 main components to make the trip shorter for all of them. Flipping the motherboard over will reveal the traces of the board, and you will notice a ton of them leading to the northbridge.