3.5 Given a scenario install & configure motherboards, CPU's & add on cards Flashcards
What does ATX stand for?
Advanced technology extended
When was ATX founded, what power connectors are used and what distinguishes ATX form factor from ITX?
Founded Intel 1995
Power connectors
20pin connector
24pin connector
additional 4/8 pin connector
ATX is a full-sized motherboard (up to seven slots) for full-sized cases
What characteristics determine motherboard form factors?
- Physical size - case sizing
- Basic layout - room for small changes
- Power - standard connectors
- Airflow - increasingly important
What is Mirco ATX (uATX)?
Smaller than an ATX motherboard • Max 4 PCI slots • Max 4 Ram slots • Backward compatibility • Similar mounting points • Similar power • Actively manufactured as of 2019
Exam Tip:
ITX is the original, defunct version of the smaller and much more popular Mini-ITX (mITX) motherboard.
What is ITX and what does it stand for?
Information Technology EXtended ITX is leader in small form factor (SSF) field • A series of low-power motherboards • Developed by VIA Technologies in 2001 • Mini-ITX is screw-compatible with ATX and microATX • Fits almost any enclosure • Small form factor uses • Single-purpose computing, i.e., streaming media
Exam Tip
ITX is the original, defunct version of the smaller and much more popular Mini-ITX (mITX) motherboard.
Motherboards are more than the home of RAM and CPUs. Storage, video, I/O, and other types of devices are also connected to the motherboard, as you learn in the following sections. These devices are connected to each other through the slots, wires, and support chips built into the motherboard and are collectively known as what?
Expansion bus
What is a computer bus?
A system bus is a single computer bus that connects the major components of a computer system, combining the functions of a data bus to carry information, an address bus to determine where it should be sent, and a control bus to determine its operation.
What is the function of expansion bus?
An expansion bus is a computer bus which moves information between the internal hardware of a computer system (including the CPU and RAM) and peripheral devices.
What are the 3 types of expansion bus?
Industry Standard Architecture (ISA)
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)
How is expansion bus width measured?
in bits
Which clock does the expansion bus use?
It’s own clock meaursed in -
Mhz
Ghz
True or false -
Clock speed always equals transfer rate
False:
Clock speed does not necessarily equal transfer rate
DDR3 SDRAM can transfer 64 times the memory clock
speed
What does PCI stand for and when was it created?
Peripheral Component Interconnect 1994
How is the width of PCI measured?
Bits
What are the widths for conventional PCI?
32-bit and 64-bit
What is throughput of conventional PCI
- 133 MB/s (32-bit at 33 MHz)
- 266 MB/s (32-bit at 66 MHz or 64-bit at 33 MHz)
- 533 MB/s (64-bit at 66 MHz)
Does PCI us serial or parallel communication?
Parallel communication
What is PCIe?
PCI Express (PCIe) is the latest, fastest, and most popular expansion bus in use today.
How does PCIe differ from PCI?
- Much faster
- Uses point to point serial connection instead of shared parallel connection
- Connects to North bridge instead of shared south bridge
What is serial point to point communication?
A PCIe lane uses a wire each to send and receive.
How many lanes does PCIe support?
1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, or 32 lanes
Each direction of a lane runs at the following speeds depending upon the PCIe version supported by the card or device and the motherboard:
PCIe 1.0: 2.5 gigatransfers per second (GTps)
PCIe 2.0: 5.0 GTps
PCIe 3.0: 8.0 GTps
PCIe 4.0: 16.0 GTps)
What is a riser card?
Riser cards are often used to allow adding expansion cards to a system enclosed in a low-profile case where the height of the case does not allow for a perpendicular placement of the full-height expansion card. A riser card is a board that plugs into the system board and provides additional slots for adapter cards.
What are CPU sockets?
Most desktop motherboards use sockets to accommodate different CPU models, although a few have soldered-in-place CPUs. AMD and Intel CPUs use different sockets and different internal architectures, so their CPUs are not interchangeable.
What is LGA and PGA?
Land grid array - Intel
Pin grid array - AMD
What socket is used to insert CPU’s?
ZIF zero insertion force socket
What is a SATA connector
SATA Hard Drive Connectors Serial ATA (SATA) is the SATA-IO standard interface for storage devices connecting with consumer devices. SATA replaces the parallel ATA bus to meet the increased bandwidth and performance demands of hard disk drive (HDD) storage applications.
What is IDE?
Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) is a standard interface for connecting a motherboard to storage devices such as hard drives and CD-ROM/DVD drives. The original IDE had a 16-bit interface that connected two devices to a single-ribbon cable.
What is the front panel connector used for?
used for wires such as the case power switch
power and drive activity signal lights
reset button
and more.
Internal USB connectors are available in which two common form factors?
USB 2.0 header -
9-pin rectangular connector Supports 2 x USB 2.0 ports
USB 3.0 header -
19-pin rectangular connector
supports 2 x USB 3.0 ports
What are the 6 steps to installing a motherboard?
- Be sure to take precautions against ESD. Always wear your anti-static wrist strap.
- Make sure the case’s brass standoff spacers match the mounting holes on the motherboard. You might need to unscrew some of them and move them around or add additional spacers.
- Install the CPU and heat sink/fan, and RAM before you install the motherboard, to avoid cracking the motherboard.
- Line up the I/O shield that fits between the hole for the port cluster and the motherboard from the inside of the case before fastening the motherboard into place. The ports in the port cluster will help to hold the shield in case.
- Before fastening the motherboard into place, connect front-panel wires, fans, and front-mounted port cables. These might be difficult to access after the motherboard is secured in place.
Caution:
Make sure the standoffs on the bottom of the case line up with the mounting holes. Remove any excess standoffs. Standoffs that touch the wire traces or solder points on the bottom of the motherboard will short out the motherboard when the power is turned on.
- Fasten the motherboard into place using the appropriate screws. If possible, use a hex driver instead of a Phillips-head screwdriver to avoid tool slippage. A scratched motherboard might fail.
What does BIOS stand for?
Basic input output system
What is the BIOS on a computer?
BIOS is the program a personal computer’s microprocessor uses to get the computer system started after you turn it on. It also manages data flow between the computer’s operating system and attached devices such as the hard disk, video adapter, keyboard, mouse and printer.
How does BIOS load the operating system?
BIOS uses Flash memory, a type of ROM. The BIOS software has a number of different roles, but its most important role is to load the operating system. When you turn on your computer and the microprocessor tries to execute its first instruction, it has to get that instruction from somewhere.
What test does BIOS run on start up?
POST - power on self test
What are 3 characteristics of Legacy Bios?
The original / traditional BIOS been around for more than 25 years
Older operating systems talked to hardware
through the BIOS Instead of accessing hardware directly
Limited hardware support No drivers for modern network, video,
and storage devices
What does UEFI stand for?
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
What are 4 characteristics of UEFI?
- UEFI is often associated with graphical system setup utilities, whereas traditional BIOS is associated with text-mode utilities—even on the CompTIA A+ 220-1001 exam. However, this isn’t a given. You can find graphical BIOS utilities and text-mode UEFI utilities.
- UEFI supports booting to partitions larger than 2.2 TB.
- Unlike with BIOS, the UEFI setup utility can be opened from within the OS.
- UEFI supports a security feature called Secure Boot that ensures a device boots using only trusted software.
What are the advantages of UEFI over BIOS?
Boot from large (> 2.2 TB) GUID partition
table (GPT) disks:
Also supports FAT and removable media
Includes a pre-boot environment
This isn’t an operating system
Has its own shell, drivers, and applications
Browse the Internet, backup a storage drive
What does CMOS stand for?
complementary metal oxide semiconductor
What is the function of CMOS?
When you make changes to your BIOS configuration, the settings are not stored on the BIOS chip itself. Instead, they are stored on a special memory chip, which is referred to as “the CMOS.
Where is CMOS located?
On some motherboards, the CMOS is a separate chip. However, on most modern motherboards, it is integrated with the RTC (real-time clock) on the southbridge.