1.1 - Laptop Hardware Flashcards
What does it mean for a laptop’s battery to be modular?
That the battery can be easily removed and replaced.
Why might it be useful to have a modular battery?
If one runs out, you can have another charged one.
Name the two major types of laptop batteries (think: Michael Scott).
Lithium-ion, lithium-ion polymer.
Why might a user, after years, have to replace a laptop battery?
Laptop batteries lose a bit of capacity when diminished and recharged, and over time might not be able to hold the charge they once could.
How are keyboards usually connected to laptops?
Ribbon cables.
Where are programs on a laptop being executed?
Memory.
In what situations can you not change/upgrade the memory in a laptop?
When the manufacturer has decided to solder the memory to the motherboard, and not designed to be modular.
What is the most common RAM form factor for laptops?
SO-DIMM: Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module
What is the traditional form factor for storage in older laptops?
Magnetic hard drives.
What is the typical dimension of a spinning hard drive in a laptop?
2.5”.
What are the advantages of an SSD?
Greatly increased read/write speeds.
What are the benefits of using M.2 interface versus SATA?
Smaller, no cables, modular.
What is, arguably, the easiest way to migrate from an HDD to an SSD? What are the drawbacks?
Install an OS on the SDD, move the user’s documents. Drawbacks: time consuming from installing second OS, moving docs, reinstalling important applications.
What does it mean to clone a hard drive? What are the benefits?
This means to create an “image” of a hard drive that contains everything: the user’s data and applications. That image file can then be copied onto the new hard drive.
What is a drive-to-drive image? What are the drawbacks?
This just copies the contents of entire drive, sector by sector, over to the new drive on another system. This requires two systems running simultaneously, or the system supporting multiple drives.
