An Overview Of System Components

Question 1

1. Which of the following components is not usually found on a motherboard?

(A) BIOS chips
(B) USB drives
(C) Memory
(D) I/O ports

Answer 1

(B) USB drives

The motherboard will include I/O ports or connectors for a variety of devices, but will not typically include the devices themselves. It will include the ATA controller and also a connector to attach the ATA drive, but not the drive itself. The same would true of USB drives, the motherboard will include the controller and connector for the USB bus but not the actual device.

Question 2

2. What type of memory loses its contents when power is turned off on your computer?

(A) CMOS memory
(B) RAM
(C) ROM
(D) EPROM

Answer 2

(B) RAM

RAM memory is volatile, or non-permanent, because it loses its contents when power is turned off on the computer.

Question 3

3. A standard power supply converts 120V AC or 240V AC to which of the following? (Select all that apply.)

(A) 3.5 V DC
(B) 3.3 V DC
(C) 6 V DC
(D) 12 V DC

Answer 3

(B) 3.3 V DC
(D) 12 V DC

Power supplies have leads that supply 3.3 V, 5V, or 12V

Question 4

4. What is the primary purpose of the processor?

(A) To convert digital signals into analog signals.
(B) To process signals so that they can be displayed on your monitor
(C) To carry out instructions from the operating system
(D) To convert 160bit data into 8- or 32-bit data

Answer 4

(C) To carry out instructions from the operating system

Processors carry out instructions that they receive from the operating system

Question 5

5. What unit is used to measure RAM speed?

(A) Milliseconds
(B) Gigaseconds
(C) Picoseconds
(D) Nanoseconds

Answer 5

(D) Nanoseconds

The normal measurement of RAM is nanoseconds, or billionths of a second

Question 6

6. Which two of the following represent hard drive architectures?

(A) PCI
(B) IDE
(C) CMOS
(D) SCSI

Answer 6

(B) IDE
(D) SCSI

Hard drive architectures used with computers are IDE (or ATA), Serial ATA (SATA), and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

Question 7

7. What is the standard most current monitors support for fallback when using older video cards?

(A) VGA
(B) SVGA
(C) CGA
(D) PAL

Answer 7

(B) SVGA

Super Video Graphics Array (SVGA) is the current graphics standard that monitors follow

Question 8

8. Modems are usually attached to a computer through what type of port?

(A) Serial
(B) Sequential
(C) Parallel
(D) Modem

Answer 8

(A) Serial

Modems are serial devices, and as such are attached to the serial port

Question 9

9. Firmware is composed of which of the following? (Choose two)

(A) Software
(B) Middleware
(C) Hardware
(D) CMOS

Answer 9

(A) Software
(C) Hardware

Firmware consists of programming code or software that is contained within a hardware component such as a ROM chip.

Question 10

10. The programs that allow the POST to take place are stored in what?

(A) BIOS
(B) COMS
(C) RAM
(D) POSTOS

Answer 10

(A) BIOS

BIOS contains the programs that allow the POST to take place. The BIOS is stored on a ROM or the EPROM

Question 11

11. What does CPU stand for?

(A) Core predetermination utility
(B) Complementary processing unit
(C) Central processing unit
(D) Co-primary uniprocessor

Answer 11

(C) Central processing unit

Question 12

12. What does CMOS stand for?

(A) Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor
(B) Co-management of operating system
(C) Configuration management and option semiconductor
(D) Configuration memory option system

Answer 12

(A) Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor